What's So Controversial About Love?

I picked up a random magazine this morning to read on my way to work.

An article about a lady called Erika Eiffel caught my attention. More specifically,  her condition called Inanimate Attachment or in other words, love of objects.

 Erika became well known in 2007 when she fell in love with the Eiffel Tower and after 3 years of frequent visits, going for weeks at a time and spending all day touching the tower, she ‘married’  the tower in a commitment ceremony before 10 of her closest friends.  She is founder of OS Internationale, an organization for those who develop significant relationships with inanimate objects. She has been featured as a spokesperson and advocate in a wide variety of publications, and on radio talk shows and television programs and has an entry in Wikipedia.

People with Inanimate Attachment, and who are called objectum sexual or OS, form romantic relationships with inanimate objects. Instead of boyfriends and girlfriends their partners are things, bridges, walls, buildings, cars and so on.

Objectum sexuals are animists, who believe everything in the world has a spirit and a soul. The OS International website reports that one third of OS people have been diagnosed with autism or Asperger’s Syndrome, disorder whose sufferers often struggle to form human relationships. However, OS people are full functioning members of society rather than introverts and can connect with people although choose objects themselves. Some are even married with kids.

An OS person would be classified as a fetishist if one sought treatment. However, according to OSI, objectum-sexuality is not a fetish; while a fetishist must have their desired object present as a catalyst to achieve sexual gratification, the OS love for the object is not based on a habitual psychosexual response.  It is the object that captivates OS person on many more levels besides sexual arousal.  Fetishists do not see the object as animate as OS people do and therefore do not commence to develop a loving relationship with the object.

The Eiffel Tower is not first or the only love of Erika Eiffel. It has been reported she fell in love with marching drums and became so skilled that she ended up playing in the inauguration ceremony of George Bush.  Her love for a F-15 Fighter jet won her a $250,000 scholarship to the United States Air Force Academy, and her love for Lance, a bow, helped her to become a World Class archer. Eiffel has said she doesn't have Asperger's syndrome, nor does she believe her chaotic childhood - shuffling between foster homes before she was adopted-  contributed to OS.

I thought the topic was interesting and chatted about it with colleagues over a cup of coffee at the office. After the initial curiosity and perhaps surprised comments and various different point of views, we all agreed that it does not matter what your sexual orientation is; hetero, homo or objectum.

What matters instead is that the relationship works for you and is appropriate for you in your life.

Ms Eiffel’s love for her bow brought her to the World Class level in athletics, driven purely by the spiritual connection with her equipment. Wouldn’t we all want such a spiritual connection with the object of our affections, - man, female or an 'it'?

Where Is Your Ship Sailing To?

The relationship between the Subconscious and Conscious Mind could be described as a relationship between a captain of a ship and the crew. To keep the ship on a safe course to the desired destination, the captain and the crew must work closely together.

Most of us are familiar with the differences between the role of a captain and a crew member, but what about the subconscious and conscious mind;
 
Our imagination, permanent memory, emotion, habits and self-preservation impulses are held in the subconscious mind. In fact, the number of activities our subconscious mind carries out is astounding!

Without realising it, we rely upon our subconscious mind to master the complex skills we need to cope with everyday life. Walking, talking, driving a car or suddenly remembering something important, - these all depend upon subconscious activities.

Our conscious mind, on the other hand, is responsible for the rational and analytical thinking, willpower and temporary memory. So that or conscious mind would not get overwhelmed by the millions of pieces of information that it receives every day, majority of the information our brain receives is filtered, deleted and generalised based on individual criteria. - These are the rules, values, beliefs about how things should be in our schema, the model of our world, so that only any 7+- 2 pieces of information is held at any time in our conscious mind.

Both roles are important and needed to ensure we operate well.

The ship, captain and the crew metaphor explains the relationship between the subconscious and conscious mind beautifully:
 
The relationship between the subconscious and conscious mind could be described as a relationship between a captain of a ship and the crew. The captain (conscious mind) develops charts and maps (schema) that describe the way that the world should look and uses these charts to tell the crew (subconscious) where to go.

The captain also decides what skills the crew must learn in order to operate the ship. This arrangement works reasonably well as long as the charts and maps are accurate, the crew has learned right skills and close co-operation is maintained between the captain and the crew.

It also works as long as the crew does not upset the captain by pointing out the things that the captain does not want to see, such as a new harbour or an island that are not on his map. As the ship cruses along the river of life, the many harbours, islands and icebergs are noted by the crew whether they are on the captain’s map or not. -The navigational errors or even disasters occur if the captain constantly refuses to use the crew’s skills or accept new information to change charts of reality.

In the simplest terms, the goal orientated coaching and hypnotherapy work in that it helps the captain to utilise the skills and knowledge held by the crew so that the charts and maps can be updated. This enables for the ship to stay on course so it will get to the desired destination, or for co-ordinates for the new destination to be established.

Where is your ship sailing to?

Proof Is In Eating The Pudding -Or Maybe Not?

A while ago I teamed up with a Health Adviser colleague to jointly build a weight loss programme for groups using both cognitive & physical training and hypnosis to boost the unconscious effort.

Our programme outline is now ready and we are launching the programme  in October. But, how successful would our programme be without us first walking the talk?

Therefore, we are walking, both metaphorically and physically!

To kick off the process I had my weight and fat %, metabolic rate & age and so on measured for the first time in 20 years, as until now, I have been avoiding scales for the fear of what I might find out and how I'd feel about it. Does this sound familiar?

I had an idea on some level what I would weigh and was surprised to find out that I was only couple of kilograms off my estimate when I got the result. Isn't it fascinating how the unconscious mind knows about these things even if I had consciously decided to ignore and avoid the scales!

Well, one thing is for sure; I certainly got a confirmation that I have a lot of work to do with reducing my weight to get to where I want to be in the next few weeks.

My weight has slowly crept up over the years, but I am not alone in this situation. The fact is that 25% of women and 20% of men in the UK are now classified as obese and even 10% of the 6 year olds. This compares with 1980 when only 8% of women and 6% of men were classified as obese. 

The cost of obesity in UK economy is a massive £2.6 billion per annum.

As for how I feel about finding the facts about my current weight and my metabolic age? Well, let’s put it this way;  if I had nothing to work on, I would not necessarily have the reason or drive to help others with issues relating to their weight. I would not have the motivation to put my best effort in work to generate a programme that really works!

Irving Kirsch carried out a research on Hypnosis and Weight Loss in 1996. The research on Hypnotic enhancement of cognitive-behavioural weight loss treatments (Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64 (3), 517-519) identified that;

"Average across post treatment and follow-up assessment periods, the mean weight loss was 6.00lb (2.72kg) without hypnosis and 11.83 lbs. (5.37kg) with hypnosis.

At the last assessment period, the mean weight loss was 6.03lbs (2.74kg) without hypnosis and 14.88 lbs. (6.75kg) with hypnosis. Correlational analyses indicated that the benefits of hypnosis increased substantially over time."

There is clear evidence that use of hypnosis is beneficial for weight loss, it will make it easier and you can lose twice as much weight with hypnosis than without.

A client of mine, who I worked with in one-to-one sessions to help her meet her goal of losing weight, contacted me after the final session and said:

" Thank you for working with me over the last few weeks. I have now started to see and feel some real changes in lifelong bad habits. I can't thank you enough for taking me on this journey, and look forward to using the self -hypnosis techniques I learned to make more and more changes."

Encouraged by the results of the study, personal experience in helping people in one-to-one sessions and a new holistic programme comprising of cognitive understanding and re-education, physical training and hypnosis to make some real  and permanent changes, I am looking forward to my soon-to-be leaner and healthier body.

So, the proof of the effectives of our weight loss programme is in the walking the talk and not in eating the pudding!

And the walk has just started.  Watch this space; I will be sharing the progress regularly in this blog starting in September.

Individual hypnotherapy sessions outside the programme for weight loss are available at Harley Street in London. Contact teija.barr@enablepotential.com for details or call on +44 (0)20 7193 9981.

Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety is a normal, if unpleasant, part of life, and it can affect us all in different ways and at different times. Whereas stress is something that will come and go as the external factor causing it (be it a work, relationship or money problems, etc.) comes and goes, anxiety is something that can persist whether or not the cause is clear to the sufferer.

It is important to recognise that anxiety is normal and exists due to the preconditioned bodily responses from early human existence.  It was useful at a time when human survival dependent on our instincts to remain alert and react to a perceived threats and therefore helped to keep us safe. This internal alarm system helped by keeping us hyper-alert, raising the levels of adrenaline and heart rate releasing extra oxygen into the system so that we were able to respond to a threat by fighting or running away.

There are many reasons why people today suffer from anxiety. Some of those reasons are more identifiable than others, for instance, due to a traumatic incident or as a result a significant change in circumstances or a life event, such as getting divorced, bereavement and so on.

Sometimes the reasons for anxiety are not immediately obvious and can be a result of a build-up of stress over a period of time, until one day the amount of stress exceeds individual ability to cope with it.

We can think in terms of three different types of anxiety disorder:

Reactive anxiety

Related to some particular incident; the fear of another such incident can be overwhelming.

Conditioned anxiety

The suffered continues to be triggered by old fears to an extend that day-to-day behaviour is impaired. The person may be experiencing forgetfulness, insomnia or other similar intrusions into everyday life.

Free-floating anxiety

There seems to be no obvious reason for anxiety and this makes ithis very ifficult to cope with. There is nothing to hang it on and therefore no apparent starting point for reducing the impact.

All types of anxiety disorders can be disruptive to the daily activities, often very significantly. They cause sleep disturbances,  inability to perform well at workplace, loss of ability to temper anger and also loss of the ability to understand the source of anger, difficulty concentrating because of concentrating on the anxiety instead, and a greatly reduced sense of self-worth.

Symptoms of anxiety

People often experience physical, psychological and behavioural symptoms when they feel anxious or stressed.

Some of the most common physical symptoms of anxiety are:

• Increased heart rate
• Increased muscle tension
• “Jelly legs”
• Tingling in the hands and feet
• Hyperventilation (over breathing)
• Dizziness
• Difficulty in breathing
• Wanting to use the toilet more often
• Feeling sick
• Tight band across the chest area
• Tension headaches
• Hot flushes
• Increased perspiration
• Dry mouth
• Shaking
• Choking sensations
• Palpitations

Some of the most common psychological symptoms (the thoughts or altered perceptions we have) of anxiety are:

• Thinking that you may lose control and/or go “mad”
• Thinking that you might die
• Thinking that you may have a heart attack/be sick/faint/have a brain tumour
• Feeling that people are looking at you and observing your anxiety
• Feeling as though things are speeding up/slowing down
• Feeling detached from your environment and the people in it
• Feeling like wanting to run away/escape from the situation
• Feeling on edge and alert to everything around you
• Avoidance of any situations potential provoking anxiety.

How can Hypnotherapy , EFT and EMT help you?

Hypnotherapy, Emotional Freedom Techniques and Eye Movement Therapies are an effective way to help to manage anxiety disorders by;

• Reducing stress by relaxation and self-hypnosis techniques
• Helping to let go of anxious thoughts
• Helping to address the causes of anxiety.
• Understanding when the symptoms started and dealing with  the contributing issues
• Rebuilding confidence and self-esteem

As with any medical condition you should always see your GP first to discuss your symptoms and treatment options first and to rule out any potential underlying causes of your symptoms.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)

If you suffer from Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), you  are very aware of the emotional and physical aspects of the condition. Everyone suffers the odd upset stomach, but for  10-20 % of the population this is a regular experience of painful  abdominal spasms, bloating, diarrhoea and constipation that go with the condition. It also means that you may live with the limitations, inconvenience, and often embarrassment that result.

IBS is a sporadic and unpredictable disruption of the digestive system. Doctors are not exactly certain what causes IBS, however it occurs when the nerves and muscles of the lower bowel area are not working the way they should. IBS can affect anyone at any time in their lives, however it typically starts during late teenage years and most often affects people between 20 and 30 years of age.

It is twice as common in women as in men. Recent trends indicate that it is also now more present in older age groups.

The National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) recommends the healthcare professionals should consider assessment for IBS if the person reports having had any of the below symptoms for at least 6 months. Symptoms can vary in type, frequency and severity and sometimes overlap with other gastrointestinal disorders such as non-ulcer dyspepsia or coeliac disease, but they can include;

Abdominal pain or cramps

Bloating

Change in bowel movements –diarrhoea, constipation or both

Other features such as lethargy, nausea, backache and bladder symptoms are common and may be used to support the diagnosis.

Conventional treatment includes dietary, lifestyle and physical activity advice as well as medication to target symptoms.

Food and Drink; Keeping a food diary to record what you have been eating and how your body reacts can help you spot problems and prepare a diet that helps to control your symptoms.

Some of the food groups most commonly known to trigger IBS symptoms include:

• Wheat Products
• Dairy Products
• Onions
• Caffeine-containing drinks like tea, coffee, and cola
• Chocolate

Stress and Anxiety; Stress can show itself in many different ways. It can be both healthy and unhealthy. Small amount of stress can help us stay motivated, however when stress exceeds our levels to deal with it, either as a result of sudden chance in circumstance or after slow build-up, it can lead to various health issues.

The immediate physical reactions to stress may be sweating, breathlessness, increased blood pressure, insomnia, diarrhoea, palpitations. Mental chances can include anxious and negative thoughts, low levels of energy.  While stress and anxiety do not directly cause IBS, over a long period these can contribute into development of gastrointestinal problems and can certainly trigger the symptoms of IBS.

There are many different ways to tackle stress. Keeping a diary of your feelings of stress and anxiety can help you being able to recognise stress, situations that cause stress and the feelings of stress that trigger a potential attack of IBS.

Hypnotherapy is particularly good for treating stress and anxiety through deep relaxation of the body and mind and by teaching on subconscious level how to prevent stress, build stamina and how take care of oneself.

How can Hypnotherapy help?

As with any medical condition you should always see your GP first to discuss your symptoms and treatment options. If you have already been diagnosed with IBS and conventional treatment has not helped, hypnotherapy can help you to manage IBS. Both the British Medical Association (BMA) and The National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) specifically recommend hypnotherapy as a treatment option for IBS sufferers.

Hypnotherapy is an effective way to help to manage IBS through the power of the unconscious mind. The sessions we run here at Enable Potential include:

• Relaxation and stress management
• Understanding when symptoms started and dealing with contributing issues
• Dealing with triggers and promotion of physical and emotional healing.
• Management of symptoms whenever they occur, using self-hypnosis and pain management techniques
• Rebuilding confidence and self-esteem.

In general, most people start to experience positive changes (physical, mental and emotional) from the first hypnotherapy session.  BMA recommends 10 sessions for successful treatment, however we at Enable Potential have found that fewer sessions are effective, especially when supported by self-hypnosis recordings.

As each person is unique, it would be wrong to state the exact number of sessions needed, but typically you should see significant improvements in symptoms and management of symptoms after initial 2-3 sessions. At Enable Potential we aim to help you with as few sessions as possible.

400,000 Reasons To Be Passionate About Relaxation

There are 400,000 reasons why we at Enable Potential are passionate about relaxation  and further 10.8 million reasons why we run Relaxation sessions for groups at work place.

The figure 400,000 relates to the number of cases of stress in 2010/11 out of a total of  1.15 million for all work-related illnesses. 10.8 million equals to the estimated working days lost due to work related stress for people working in the last 12 months in 2010/11.

These are the latest estimates from the Labour Force Survey in Great Britain.

What is stress and what causes it?

Stress is a word used to cover a large number of words which include fear, pressure, panic, conflict, anxiety, fatigue, burden, strain, discord, unhappiness, upset and tension. As well as there being different meanings for stress, there are also different types of stress such a physical, emotional and mental stress.

Stress is caused by any change, threat of a possibility of change in our environment, thoughts or our body.

The HSE (Health and Safety Executive) formally defines stress as ‘The adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them at work’.

There is a difference between pressure and stress. Pressure can be positive and a motivating factor, and it is often essential in a job as it can help us achieve goals and perform well.  When the pressure exceeds our ability to cope, this becomes stress. Stress is, in fact,  a natural reaction to too much pressure.  It is the reaction to the state of arousal the body manifests in response to a perceived threat.

Stress can also be a result from having too few demands resulting to feeling bored and undervalued.

There are number of different ways people are effected by stress and  what becomes stressful to one person can be a walk in the park for another!  The factors to consider include the person’s background and culture, personality, skills and experience, health, other demands in and outside of work. 

Stress is an individual experience, however if  a workplace has no systems in place to respond to individual concerns over work demands or to respond to concerns over control that an employee has over the way they do they work, this can result into development of a stressful workplace.  If this is topped up with  lack of support from colleagues and management, lack of healthy relationships at workplace with working anti-bullying policies, lack of understanding of individual roles and responsibilities and poorly managed changes, it would be surprising to find an employee that had not been impacted by or suffered from stress at some point.

The HSE introduced the management standards approach model to reducing stress in the workplace in 2005 and it is considered that take up by employers in GB will lead to reduction in total number of cases of work related stress over time. In fact, the estimated number of cases in 2010/11 is significantly lower than the total case number in 2001/02, but there is still a long way to go and more attention and care is required to remove the causes of stress at work place.

Stress can cause changes in those experiencing it.  In some cases there are clear signs that people are experiencing stress at work and if these can be identified early, action can be taken before the pressure becomes a problem. This may make it easier to reduce and eliminate the causes.

It is important that everyone looks out for changes in a person's or a group's behaviour. However, in many cases the changes may only be noticeable to the person subject to the stress and so it is also important to look at how you are feeling and try to identify any potential issues you may have as early as possible and take positive action to address them; this may be raising the matter with a line manager, talking to an occupational health professional or your own GP.

Stress can show itself in many different ways. The immediate physical reactions to stress may be sweating, breathlessness, increased blood pressure, insomnia, diarrhoea, palpitations. Mental chances can include anxious and negative thoughts, low levels of energy.  Over a long period these can develop into hypertension, heart disease, skin disorders such as eczema and psoriasis, metabolic issues, irritable bowel syndrome,  impaired capacity to repair ulcers, depression or even post traumatic stress disorder.  These are serious health issues. It is not therefore a surprise that on average each person suffering from workplace related stress condition in 2010/11 took 27 days off work.

The employer has a lot of responsibility for taking stress in the workplace seriously, even more so knowing that if they do not pay it due attention they may be sued for negligence. However, it is also an individual responsibility and this means we all need to pay attention on how we are feeling and look where the potential problems are. 

It also means that if your employer is taking all the right steps and is offering opportunities at your workplace to help you prevent or reduce stress, you should make most of these opportunities. These can include independent health advice, gym memberships, holistic services such as meditation and relaxation sessions.

This is where we at Enable Potential come in;

Our offering includes powerful relaxation sessions for groups and individuals using hypnosis. We believe in helping individuals and teams perform better in their professional and personal lives by relieving stress through deep relaxation of the body and mind and by teaching on subconscious level how to prevent stress, build stamina and how take care of oneself.

We believe in teaching people the skills to achieve instant relaxation and calm through self-hypnosis.  By doing our bit, we hope that that we can keep the number of people attending our sessions out of the statistics and  continue to have 400,00 alternative reasons to be passionate about relaxation at work place!

Contact us at info@enablepotential.com to find out more.

Clean Coaching with Emergent Knowledge

Emergent Knowledge has been developed from David Grove's work in Clean Language, metaphor, Clean Space and the Six Degrees to Freedom.

Emergence is the science of how things are achieved through connections. It evolved from the theories of chaos and six degrees of separation and explains how through repetitive connections, knowledge which may be buried in the client's subconscious, can emerge.

What makes Clean Coaching powerful is that it treats everything that comes up during a client session as a system.

Clean Coaching follows a shape which is not dissimilar to the standard GROW coaching model but uses a different process for achieving the end results. The different Clean Processes, such as Spaces, Scapes, Pronouns, Spinning, Time, Hieroglyphics and so forth can be used to structure the entire session, or inserted individually into any other coaching structure.
Clean Coaching success is based on the principle that in a session everything is treated as a system and the client is part of that system. The sessions are about integrating the things the client is fighting so that they participate instead of working against them.

What the client will be able to achieve will emerge out of the experience rather than simply setting a goal and then trying to jump in order to reach it.

During the session the blocks that may materialise are explored 'cleanly' until the blocks disappear. As the client's starting position, the goal and anything in between works as an interconnected system, the goal that the client set in the beginning of the session may chance by the end of it. During the session new knowledge emerges without the physiology of effort.

Each Clean Process, also known as a Knowledge Exercise has its purpose. So for instance, Pronouns can be used to help the client understand that there is more than one self that may respond in any situation. These different selves of the client may have become disassociated at some point in their lives, so pronouns is a great way to re-associate and re-align using the emerged knowledge.

Clean Spinning emerges knowledge which may be uncovered when the client faces different directions in their lives, Clean Boundaries examines the spaces and boundaries around a goal or an issue.

The Clean Time is one of my personal favourites as although it is quite similar to that of the NLP timeline process, it is also very different and a powerful way to download information if used with Clean Scapes. Used together with scapes this results into a drawing of a map of the client’s perceptual relationship to time with a purpose to re-align or re-scale their internal time signature to match that of their current reality.

Clean Coaching is one of the cutting edge coaching methods used at Enable Potential. Contact for more details  info@enablepotential.com

A Moment Of Clarity

Have you ever had a moment of clarity when all of sudden you know exactly where you are, where you want to be, and most of all, know how to get where you want to be? If you have, then you are familiar with the feeling that came with the moment the realisation of this hit your brain and when you suddenly could hear and see what needed to be done. The victorious beat of your heart drumming this new found clarity further into your conscious mind telling you that you had arrived to significant knowledge.

I had one of those moments this  morning as I was standing in a busy London underground train amongst the many other commuters, trying to read a book to pass the time and to make my twice-a-day journey more interesting. I stood there, amongst the unfamiliar faces while steadying my balance to meet the movements of the train..the sudden stops  at signals and as we approached a station and then left again, doors opening and closing. The rhythm of this so strangely soothing that I found my eyes starting to wonder and leave the page until I found myself merely staring at it,  unable to see anything. My mind started to journey….

..and I don’t know where it went to… My thoughts simply disappeared for 10 minutes or so and there was simply nothing that would make sense, at least in order to describe in a sensible sentence. Perhaps some fleeting images, half constructed thoughts, memories from the past and recent weeks and days, parts of a dream? Nothing that I could really catch, just quickly passing moments of a whole lot of nothing.

I suppose I looked like any other passenger, standing there with glassy eyes, emotionless, waiting to get to my destination, to get off the train.

Then it hit me. The clear image of a vision of what I wanted. It came so clearly out of nowhere that I was taken by  surprise. The image of what I wanted to do and how to get there. Not the million, zillion little details, but the key ingredients of the buzzle that I had been consciously trying to solve for weeks and had almost given up on thinking that I wasn’t ready, that I needed to know more, to experience more, to have more reference points.  And there it was. The simple structure of my initiative and the knowledge that I was familiar with every single step that had revealed itself to me.

What happened, what had made this possible now? These were the questions I was asking myself as I stepped out of the train onto the platform and had steadied the fast, excited beat of my heart. I was relieved and happy at the same time with the new knowledge  I now had, but I was also curious to understand what had made this knowledge available now, on a typical morning to work and without any  conscious effort?

Was it the soothing rhythm of the train that had somehow sent my mind to the edge of the subconscious to retrieve information that I did not know I had? Was it the boring familiar journey that had switched on the autopilot and let my mind run loose? Was it the fact that I had a moment of no self-made thoughts, no worry, no content?

Perhaps it was all of those things and many more..  it just goes to show how there is a lot of power in a moment of  'nothingness' and how a vision can rise from the absence of conscious thoughts.. creating a  perfect moment of clarity for where you are, where you want to be and how to get there!

*****

What happened to me during my journey is an example of naturally occurring everyday trances, usually known as hypnoidal states that are so commonly experienced by us.

A Hypnotic trance is a natural everyday occurrence and most of us dip in and out of trance throughout the day, this is ofcourse what happened during my journey to work. May of us have experienced  this for example as 'driving on auto-pilot', having driven a car safely to the destination with no conscious memory of the journey itself. Or maybe you have been so entranced by a film that you forgot about an appointment or did not hear what someone said or asked? 

The term trance therefore refers to a dreamlike but highly focused state of mind experienced by people in everyday situations,  or when they undergo a hypnotic induction.  During a hypnotherapy session, the hypnotherapist will induce trance. This enables the client achieve focused inner awareness during which restrictions of conscious mind are bypassed, allowing information from unconscious to surface.

The trance-like state I entered during my journey to work enabled me to unconsciously process the problem that I had been thinking about and suddenly bring the information into my conscious awareness giving me the much wanted 'Ahaa'moment.

---

A Ray of Sunshine

I woke up this morning feeling pretty good.

It was the morning of a second continuous day of sunshine and the birds were singing. I could hear them through the gap of the bedroom window I had left ajar before going to bed at night.

A little ray of sunshine sneeked through the curtains and made my nose tickle...

Somewhere in my mind I started to built an image of a younger version of myself lying on the soft but tickly green grass and I saw myself staring at the sky and the slowly moving clouds made of softest candy floss. I was trying to figure out what they resembled as they floated past my hazy vision. ‘That one, just over there looks like a boat, and there goes a squirrel’..

As I was lying there, in my imaginary place, I took a moment to look around my surroundings and sniffed the air to catch the fragrance of the honeyed nectar oozing out of the clovers that were blooming around me. The  velvet green grass with white and pale pink flowers reminded me of a cosy blanket and made me feel very relaxed and at peace.


 A gentle breeze with cool undertone touched my cheeks. It took me deeper to my memories and reminded me of the early summer mornings of my Scandinavian childhood when I woke up at the crack of dawn, feeling excited for no particular reason. It was enough for me to know that I had woken up to a beautiful summer morning.

Anything would be possible during the summer. This was the season, after all, when the Mother Earth revealed fully the secrets she had been hiding under a cloak of thick snow for several months. So many exciting things to do; Surprises to be found under stones (some with several legs) and so many pretty plants to be examined! Caterpillars hiding under the thick green leafs.

And afterwards, once my toes would get tired of climbing up rock faces, enjoying the feeling of the cool, soothing water massaging my hot toes as I would sit there tipping my toes in the freshwater lake and lazily splashing the water around, breaking the calm surface of it, making circles with my toes. Just like little tornadoes of water.

And the fish, what about the fish? The endless, quiet, time-stopping hours of sitting down by the lake trying to catch fish. The little float bobbing in and out of sight in the clear blue water. The feeling of excitement bubbling and shooting up my chest when I would notice a tiny fish circling around the wiggly worm, curious at first, then unable to resist a bite. The feeling of patient joy while waiting for the right moment for the sharp pull of the rod so I could  praise the hook out of the water to catch the unsuspecting victim.  Yes, anything was possible!

I continued to lie there, in the green grass of my memories and made up thoughts listening to the birdsong and the buzzing of the bees.

Isn’t it curious how much information can be packed into a ray of sunshine?


*****


I was inspired to write this little short story last year when a ray of spring sunshine invoked a set of memories from my childhood. It reminds me of the power of the unconscious mind and its ability to retain information and recall it at most unexpected times in response to various stimulus!