I have literally just had a very humbling experience and something that has brought to the surface many, many things for me. I live near water, there are some amazing docks and the view of the river is frikkin cool. A few moments ago, there were fire engine and police cars and helicopters crawling all over the place, so I took a walk to see what was going on.

Leading up to today, I have been going through a few things and have recently had the pleasure of meeting someone really cool. We have a lot in common and get on really well, and it has made me see that it is possible that I could find a somebody in this world. There are a few challenges, as always, that I have been internally questioning a lot, really making myself quite upset at times, however, honesty is something that is hugely important to me, and we have had possibly one of the most honest conversations I have ever had with anyone. It made me realise that you never ever know what is going to happen in your life, and sometimes you just have to accept the way that things are and go with them.

I woke up this morning feeling really down, very down in fact and you know, I have blogged about this in the past and I still work on it now. Sometimes, I get tired of learning. Sometimes I get tired of physically having to deal with some of this shit and if I am honest enough to say, sometimes I can’t actually stand it, I really can’t. I feel like I take 1 step forward and 2 steps back at times and it can be pretty tough going. I have to look after myself really hard but it has become a way of life now and something that I do naturally and something I want to show people. So yeah, this morning was tough and hard work too.

Anyway, so there I was, walking towards where all these emergency services were and found out that someone had killed themselves and they were now trying to find the body. It took me back to many years ago when I thought that there was no way out, and it brought up all of those feelings and emotions and I stood there amongst all these people with tears just rolling down my face because we heart went out to that person and to their family.

Sometimes, it feels like there is no way out of things and sometimes people give up. I wanted to give up today – not necissarily on life, but on something very special in my life. I realised that if I was to have something special one day, I have to go through these trials now. If you have something special in your life, appreciate it for every gift that it is – challenges and all. One day you can look back and see how amazing the experience was and how you go through it.

There will always be that one special person out there that you can talk to, and they will let you cry and get upset and they will let you know that it is OK. I wondered if that person had someone to talk to, and I know what went through their mind the moment they made that decision and people say that it is the cowards way out, but you know, it takes courage to do something like that and I am not making any excuses for that. Sorry this may be a bit of a ramble but I am just speaking from my heart and letting whatever comes out, come out. I am about to go and see that friend that I can talk to because I am lucky enough to have people like that around me, and I hope I can keep it under control, and you know what, if I can’t, I don’t care.

I tell you what mate, life is so frikkin short, it really is. Live it. Love it, no matter how painful it is at times.

I have not written for a while as I have been fighting with the writing lately – I think there are things I feel I am ready to share that could possibly be too honest for my own liking, and that scares me a little bit. I know, that sounds a bit strange, but hey ho ! I have been doing lots of old fashioned writing so I promise you that it will make it’s way across here sooner or later.

Anyway, recently I have had some pretty big learnings come around in my life as you know, especially with the broken toe and being unable to run the marathon. That really taught me how much I need to slow down and takes things easy. Yet there is something else I want to share with you, and possibly this is also one of those honest things too, one that is deeply personaly and maybe a bit tough to share but I have a philosophy in my life and that is if you can’t walk the walk, then why the fuck should you talk the talk ?

So, not too long ago I came across someone pretty cool. You know when you meet people who just have a pretty significant impact on your life ? Yup ! One of those people. Now forgive me, but being 37 years old, I was beginning to think that when people told those stories, they were just that – STORIES ! That was until recently. I found myself being very confused and frightened by these things that were going through my head because they totally defied any strategy or thought-pattern that I had regarding this type of thing. No matter how much I tried to deny it or make it go away, it was just there.

And that is when I got the learning maybe. It is OK to feel the way you feel when you feel it, whatever it is. As long as you live in the now, experience it, enjoy it and make the most of it. Moments like this do not come along very often, so why not just live now. Yup ! You can say that you know all these things, and I know that because I often say it, but how often do we truly do it? How often do we actually just relish each and every moment that we have in an experience that brings a smile to our faces?

You never know when something is going to happen, and when you sit around expecting things and pondering on things or thinking things through, you totally forget about the NOW and that is when it happens. That is when magic occurs – right now.

Self-harming is something that I struggled with for many, many years of my life and to this day, I see the scars that remind me of how far I have come and what I have worked through, both on my own and with the help of trained professionals – something that I will always encourage people to do.

In doing so, there are also some small things that I used to do that helped me to break the pattern of constantly hurting myself, whether it was physically, mentally or emotionally. These little steps, combined with other things, made a huge difference, and in working with people in the past, I have found that it has made a huge difference with them as well.

The first thing that you need to grasp is that, even though this is a coping mechanism, in one way or another, it has also become a habit that we do. Identifying what triggers that habit and breaking the cycle, along with professional help to deal with the underlying causes, are 2 of the biggest steps to take to freedom from this.

1)    Keep a journal of your emotions, recording every single thing that you feel and what you go through. This may seem like a very negative thing to do, but as you go along, it will help you to notice a pattern or patterns leading up to times when you hurt yourself. Seeing these can help you to change or alter the way that things happen because you are no aware of them.

2)    Hurting ourselves produces hormones in the body that are the equivalent of natural pain killers – they get released by the body when it is under stress and the overall effect that they have on us is that they tend to relax or quieten our minds, and more often that not, this is also part of the cycle. The body knows that when it hurts itself, it is going to get a hit of something – kind of like a drug addict scoring, and this then becomes a mental cycle. Understanding this principle makes the next suggestions easier to follow.

3)    Carry a thick elastic band with you around your wrist – you know you can get those bright coloured bracelets that many charities now use to raise awareness. Whenever you feel the urge to go out and do something to yourself, pull the band back as far as you can and let it snap back down to your wrist. This, in effect, has a similar effect to that of cutting yourself or harming yourself in other ways, and is also a very good way to interrupt the pattern.

4)    Another way to do this is to go and find a cube of ice and grip it tightly in your hand for as long as possible.

5)    One of the best things that I ever personally did, and believe me, this may sound strange at first, but you will only do it a few times before you begin to understand how to break your cycle because it can be rather amusing. Whenever I felt the urge to hurt myself and I was in a public place, I would clap my hands together as loud as I possibly could. First of all, it was rather painful, but more importantly, it gave everyone around me quite a large fright, as well as myself and I only had to do this 2 or 3 times and I began to break the thought pattern of going to do something else to myself.

6)    Reward yourself every single time you manage to do one of the above things rather than something else. Notice how you feel proud of yourself for not doing something damaging, and begin to feel the freedom that comes with this release from old patterns.

The most important thing throughout this, is to get help from someone. There are many people out there who are qualified and able to help you get out of this pattern and there is nothing to be ashamed of. In my personal opinion, people may believe that we who self harm are cowards – however, having lived through this for over 20 years, and having come out the other side alive, I can honestly say that it takes a huge amount of courage to do what we do, and at the same time, that same courage is what we have to use to our advantage in getting out of the cycle and helping those who are still trapped.

These are my own thoughts and opinions and are what have personally helped me in my own life, and should not be followed without also consulting and working alongside a trained professional.

I have always been passionate about adding value in all that I do, whether it be business or personal relationships with people -–which, at the end of the day, transfers to any service that you provide. It makes people remember you, regardless of whether they have taken up your offer or not, and when the time comes for your service to be required, if you have added value, your name will be the one that they will always remember and come back to.

Here is how you can add massive value to anything service that you provide, both online and face to face.

1)    Maintain a State of Excellence

This means being in the best state at all time – state of mind, state of knowledge and state of actions. Make sure you keep abreast of what is going on in your environment, learn what you always need to learn and be excellent at all times. Being able to answer questions from clients in the right frame of mind, with the right attitude and in the right way creates something very special. And most of all, get the little things right like remembering a customer’s name or even keeping your facts brief and to the point. Say things like you mean them, and be proud of the knowledge that you have acquired, or more importantly, of the knowledge that you can gain.

2)    Be Consistently Consistent

Once you have entered a state of excellence in all that you do, ensure that you keep this up. There is nothing more frustrating than being told one thing, and later on finding out that what you heard is totally different. Ensure that all levels or service that you provide are consistent throughout and that this is reflected throughout your organisation, business or life.

3)    Pay Attention

First impressions count and last a life time. It is often times very difficult to change somebody’s mind after they have first met you without diligent and consistent hardwork and effort on your part. Be thorough in all your dealings and pay close attention to the finer details that often go unnoticed but make a huge difference in what you do. Being in a consistent state of excellence and paying attention to things as they go on around you make way for a very memorable first encounter, and one that will not be forgotten very quickly.

4)    Empathise, don’t sympathise

Your clients or friends or associates have come to your for a reason very important to them, no matter what it is. Put yourself in their shoes and feel their feelings rather than trying to understand what they are going through. Be aware of the needs of those who approach you, knowing that with your knowledge, skills and awareness, you will be able to be there to support them to whatever they need to do. Another way of looking at this is by saying to yourself “If I was my client or friend, how would I like to be treated in this situation?”

5)    Appreciation

Adding value to someone’s life costs you absolutely nothing at all, and is a very simple and rewarding thing to do, regardless of the outcome. It has nothing to do with spending money right now, but has everything to do with creating a long-lasting experience and relationship. Appreciate the time and effort that they have taken to come to you with their needs, and acknowledge the part that you can play in their next step, whatever it might be

Fear exists for everyone in their life, no matter where they are at. It is a completely and totally natural thing and one that keeps us alive. However, in some instances, many of us allow this fear to drive us and we allow it to stop us from doing things. Remember when you were young, how you used to do things that now would stop you cold. When we first started school, there was no real fear of rejection – had we listened to that fear like we sometimes do as adults, how would we have ever made those childhood friends and how would we have grown up. As we get older, and as we start to listen to the opinions of everyone else, it is then that we start allowing those fears to control us until one day, we realise that there is a very real problem with us.

I allowed fear to drive and guide my life for many years, until it landed me in a very bad place, totally afraid of everything and even to scared to go out on my own. In a defining moment in my own life, I decided that I was going to reclaim my own personal power, and start working on them, one by one. I am not going to say that I no longer have any fears, however, I can openly and honestly say that I no longer allow my fear to “live my life” for me.

These are a few of the very simple steps that I took to overcome these fears: -

1) Take the focus off yourself. If you notice a situation where you get fearful, more often than not, it is because your are focusing on what is going on for you personally. What if this happens or what if that happens or what it this gets said – most of the time, it is all internal reflection on yourself. Stop focusing on what is in it for you, or what could happen and begin to think about how things could happen for the other person – maybe you are afraid of speaking to someone new because you don’t want to rejected. Instead of thinking of yourself, think about how their life could be made different by having a friend like you. When you start focusing outwardly, the fear immediately diminishes and it becomes way easier to do things.

2) Respect that other people have the right to their own opinion, and that by them saying what they feel does not have anything to do with you personally. If someone offers me onions and I don’t eat onions, I have the right to refuse them. It is nothing personal against him who offers them to me, it is just me allowing myself to say what works for me.

3) Would you rather have someone be honest with you at the onset, rather than find out months or weeks down the line that because they were too afraid to express their opinions, they had been lying to you? It is better to have a “no” or a “rejection” at the onset, because someone is being open and honest with you, rather than them lying to you and leading you on, only to cause you to feel pain in the end.

4) Thomas Edison made many different light bulbs before he came across one that actually worked. What if he had given up after the first go? Where would we be today? What better way to get to the person who seriously wants to talk to us or get to know us than by getting all the other ones out of the way first. We will never get to a “yes” without making the wrong type of light bulbs first. Another way of looking at this, if every offer we made was accepted, we would then have to be the one doing all the rejecting, and let me tell you, I don’t think I would want to be in that position where because everything has gone my way, I now have to do something I used to fear.

5) Our fears can also bring to our attention things that we can work on and improve in our own lives. They can help us to accept that there are areas of our lives that we need help or assistance with, that we can work on to become a better person, a more authentic and honest person and someone who is genuine, rather than pretending a lot, and this was something that I found the most rewarding out of all of it.

As you know, the last few days were a little tough so I have been rather focused (or should I say, more focused than I normally would) on what I envisage for my own life, as well as for the lives of those that are important to me. I find that during the crap times, as hard as it can be, turning my focus to the bigger picture allows me to “get out of the pit.” So knowing that this has worked very well for me in the past, that is what I did.

I l0oked up instead of looking around and down and it really helped.

I took some (more) time out to reflect on my journey so far – it always reminds me of how much things have changed for me and it makes me see the growth that has taken place. I remembered the times in the past when I thought that things would never get better, because that was all I knew how to think – you know those times when things happen and you have no frikkin idea how they could change. Yup, I remembered those times because it showed me that I got through.

I then took some time out to think about my passion in life. What is it that makes me get up each and every morning, because let’s face it, if you do not have something to wake up to, then what is the point of getting out of bed. Regardless of what you do, why do you do it ? For some people, it may just be getting through the day to the next pay day, for other people, it may be because they have some sort of obligation or commitment to something. But for me, it is because I have a plan. A plan that makes me scared and excited all at the same time. One that makes me think of the bigger picture, rather than my own secluded world. Something that ignites the flame of passion inside of me. So I did some writing, I did some strategic planning and I made some important conversations that resulted in my decisions for my life being confirmed.

In short, I re-connected with my passion and desire for my own life, no matter how huge or grand it seemed. To the extent that I even got someone to make an enquiry to find out how much it would cost to hire out a rather large venue as well as sending some emails to find out about some further studying that I would like to do.

It helped a fuck load I tell you, because it reminded me that without my passion in my life, there would be nothing to get out of bed for. And some years ago, that passion was not there and even though there was so much going for me, without knowing my passion, I did not see the point. And that is pretty cool because I personally know a lot of people who want to do things but they are just not sure what it is that they want to do.

Take some time out to connect with your passion. Listen to the music that makes you cry when you hear it and ask yourself why it does that to you. There will always be a clue. Look around at the world going by and put yourself in other people’s shoes to see if you can come up with what their passion in. That way, you will open your mind to something that makes you want to fly. You will open your mind to a whole new world or opportunity and discovery.

I did. I opened that door a little wider and let out a little more, and I know that, despite the challenges that come my way and try to get me back, the door is open and the passion is out and it ain’t fucking going nowhere mate !