Inspiration

The Courage to Change

As a Life Coach I know that the first steps to change are to get clear about WHAT we want instead of the current reality, WHY we want it and how it will make us FEEL. So why I am experiencing so much procrastination, avoidance and self-sabotage at the moment?

I have been supporting people on their journey of personal and spiritual growth for 13 years now. I have observed that it is all very well having a dream but what separates the dreamers from the those who actually manifest the dream?

One simple thing…….COURAGE.

For any positive change to manifest in either our inner or our outer worlds, we must accept that life as we know it must be altered somehow. It can be challenging when we move from one way of being to another and we humans tend to make it even more difficult by thinking we have some control over how it all plays out!

For example, last week I asked the Universe for clear guidance about how to handle an addiction which I have lived with for 35 years. As a Life Coach I know that the first steps to change are to get clear about WHAT we want instead of the current reality, WHY we want it and how it will make us FEEL.

What I WANT is to feel really alive in my healthy, energetic body.

Great, that is 100% clear.

WHY I want this is because I want to FEEL more vibrant physically and to age well.

Fantastic, that is also clear.

But do all my habits NOW reflect vibrant health and vitality? Am I doing the same old thing the same old way and expecting a different outcome?

Uh oh! Fail! Mismatch! Unclear signal!!

I am sending out mixed messages so the Universe is giving me mixed manifestations. I live this incredibly liberated and beautiful life here in the Dordogne with my perfect partner and all is well in my world. Yet, here I am stuck in the same old internal cycle of addiction and not making the changes that are required.

Why all the procrastinating, avoidance and self-sabotage?

Simple. Fear. Of failing (again). Of the challenges of letting go of any addiction. Of changing my thought patterns and my behavioural patterns. Who will I be without it? How will I cope? Will I become really boring? The roller-coaster of change can be a scary ride sometimes……

And yet, I live with a man who trained with Susan Jeffers and taught Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway workshops for years so fear isn’t something that gets much of a say in my relationship with Eoin Scolard!

And what is my antidote to fear?

Courage.

Pure and simple.

“Coeur” in French means “heart” and courage has kept calling me to live from my heart, to be vulnerable, to be authentic, to be open, to embrace my intuitive nature, to live a fabulously unconventional, free life and to speak my truth. It also allows me to feel safe being a bit ‘witchy’ without fear of being burnt at the stake (cue traumatic past life memory!).

When I live in my heart I have access to all the courage I need to handle change with grace and ease. And so it is. I continue to listen to my heart’s wisdom and take baby steps to change.

I am so passionate about this subject at the moment that I have decided to pop back to Ireland to give 2 evening workshops called THE COURAGE TO CHANGE. I do hope you will decide me in Dublin on Tuesday 6 November and in Newry on Friday 23 November.

I will also be back in Ireland on Sunday 6 January for a very special day with me called WOMEN’S CHRISTMAS which is going to be a powerful gathering of sisterhood to let you reflect on all the lessons and learnings of 2018, to relax deeply so that you can be receptive, and to refocus on your dreams for 2019.

I hope to see you there and, in the meantime, follow me or Positive Living Network on your social media for more on the Courage to Change.

Jenny G x

My Camino

I may not be a true pilgrim (yet!) but the Camino has definitely guided a lot of my life over the last 18 months.

As you will see from this video which we recorded back in October 2016 during our first visit to the Dordogne, one of the things which we fell in love with about the region was the walks.

Since we adopted them a few years ago, our two large dogs, Samson and Delilah have been our motivation to go out for a decent walk every day and we all benefit hugely from the exercise, the fresh air and the countryside.

Much as we loved walking in the countryside in Northern Ireland, we really didn’t enjoy getting soaked and having to walk through saturated fields in welly boots so often! So, during our first visit here, we were delighted to discover that the stunning landscape of the Perigord is full of the most beautiful walks through ancient forest, sleepy hamlets, ridiculously pretty villages and along the riverbanks.

Even more exciting for me was that I hadn’t realised that the ancient pilgrim route to Santiago de la Compostela in northern Spain also meanders through this area. Many years ago I read actress Shirley MacLaine’s book ‘The Camino: A Pilgrimage of Courage’ and I had a strong desire to walk El Camino de Santiago (or le Chemin de St Jacques as it is called in France). You can imagine my surprise when Eoin and I went out for a walk from the place we were house-sitting in back in October 2016 and found ourselves right on the Camino! Continue reading “My Camino”

The Healing Power of Conscious Relationships

9 years together and still deepening in love each day.

Journal extract from Thursday 4 June 2009……

Sitting in Belfast City Airport waiting for a plane to take me to the Hill That Breathes in Italy. What an adventure! I have such a BIG feeling about what this week’s retreat will bring. I am open to positive adventures, new, wonderful relationships and an amazing lover……Bring it on!”

When I read back over my words it is almost as if a part of me new that a few hours later, on top of a hill in Italy, I would be introduced to my new best pal, my lover, my soul mate, my fellow adventurer and life partner.

Today, 4 June 2018, we are celebrating the 3287 days that we have been in each other’s lives and it feels right for me to reflect on the incredible journey which we have been on together since this photo was taken 9 years ago. My love for Eoin Scolard continues to deepen day after day and I simply cannot imagine what my life would be like today without his presence over that period of time. Continue reading “The Healing Power of Conscious Relationships”

In Search of Balance

I have never been very good at doing things in moderation. I am an all-or-nothing-kind-of-gal! If there are chocolates in the house, they get eaten. If the bottle of wine is opened, it gets drunk. If I fall in love, I jump in with both feet. You get the picture! I have a pretty addictive personality and, up until recently, the only way I could really manage my addictions was with abstinence. When I quit my 30-a-day nicotine habit in my late 30s, I had to just quit completely and I will NEVER touch another cigarette. A few years ago I quit the booze for a couple of years and was sugar-free for a similar length of time. I felt great….super-healthy, clear-headed, vibrant, energised, glowing.

However, since moving to France 4 months ago, I have faced a bit of a challenge and my old ways of managing these addictions doesn’t really work for me anymore. There is a beautiful patisserie in nearly each village, we are surrounded by some of the best vineyards in the world and our local wine shop (chateau) is only 5 mins away from our front door and looks like this –

Personally I just don’t see the point in living here and not allowing myself to enjoy these simple pleasures. They are so much a part of the way of life and I really want to enjoy ALL aspects of my new life here in a healthy, balanced way. Continue reading “In Search of Balance”

A Shift in Perspective

A large part of the reason that we decided to leave Ireland was because we are outdoors people and we found the weather there to be changing for the worse over recent years. Having spent a lot of money and time creating a beautiful patio area outside our house there, we noticed that in 2016 we were actually only able to spend about 10 days throughout the whole year sitting in it because of the poor weather conditions. The part of Co. Down where we lived also seemed to be getting wetter and wetter and the seasons were becoming less defined every year. Despite Mr Trump’s assertion that climate change doesn’t exist, the long hot Irish summers of my childhood are definitely a thing of the past.

We were both craving more daylight, more sunshine and more vitamin D, especially during the long winter months which were always a bit of a struggle for me. So before we made our decision to move, Eoin did extensive research of weather patterns in different parts of SW France. Even within the Dordogne there are quite different conditions in various areas. We finally settled on a specific area which we loved and which also has great weather and we have been living nearby since the start of October.

Locals told us stories of eating Christmas dinner out in the garden some years. They also told us that February and May are usually the wettest months but that the seasons are well defined and that we will be able to spend most of our time outdoors for about 8 months of the year. It sounded like heaven to us!

And yet, in recent weeks all the locals are talking about is “le temps exceptionnel” (the exceptional weather) and they don’t mean exceptionally good! It honestly feels as if it has hardly stopped raining here since the start of November. Our daily walks with the dogs across the vineyards and through the forests find us all returning covered in mud and often soaking. Yesterday was so wet and wild that the dogs didn’t even want to go out to the toilet! So, for the first day since we left Ireland, we didn’t get any exercise or fresh air. The Dordogne river is higher than people have seen it for nearly two decades and the land is completely saturated. This photo looks lovely until you realise that is actually an image of the picnic area and car park by the river in Limeuil which has been under water for the last few weeks. A friend here told me on Monday that 10 of their 12 acres of riverside land are now under water. We haven’t been able to sit outside once in nearly two months now and whilst it is milder than Ireland, the damp conditions mean that we are lighting a fire every day. This was not what I had visualised for my new life in France! I hope that we didn’t bring the Irish weather with us.

When I woke up this morning to the sound of more rain, more muddy dog paw prints to mop up and the prospect of another wet walk, I have to say that my spirit was struggling. My mood was low and I was aware of feeling frustration, disappointment and a tinge of despondency. But one of the great things about our two dogs is that they love their exercise and Delilah especially gets very jittery if she doesn’t get at least 4 kilometres a day (plus her daily deer chase which she loves in the Dordogne!). So, with great reluctance, I hauled myself out of bed, put on my walking gear and we headed out. Continue reading “A Shift in Perspective”

Home Sweet Home!

After 6 months looking and 3 months extremely focused and intensive (15 hours per week) house-hunting we have finally bought our new home in the Dordogne! Voici ‘La Girouette’……

New house1

Anyone who has bought a home in France knows that the system here is very different to the UK/Ireland. For starters there are no big centralised property search engines that all the immobiliers (estate agents) register their properties on. There are dozens of different websites many of which are difficult to navigate and have poor search terms. Next, hardly anyone puts up “A Vendre” (For Sale) signs so you have no idea which houses are actually on the market. After all our searching we genuinely believe that maybe 1 in every 5 houses in the Dordogne must be on the market. The number of properties for sale here is just staggering so you can spend literally weeks trawling through websites trying to find houses which match your criteria.

Then once you do find one which looks good and ticks the boxes on paper you have to try to find out where it is. “Proche d’un village” (near to a village) can mean anything up to 10 kms from the local village and, even then, that village might have no boulangerie or any other shops because there are many, many ‘dead’ villages in the area. The estate agents’ descriptions of locations are deliberately vague because they don’t want people to go to the owners directly for a private sale. Given that the agent’s charge a massive 5-6% of the selling price in fees, you can understand that they might want to safe-guard that income by being as cagey as possible. However, for the house-hunter this makes life very difficult and the whole process incredibly slow because you have to arrange a viewing of every single property which might vaguely be of interest even though you have no idea if it is on a main road or right beside a factory! Continue reading “Home Sweet Home!”

Avoiding the Void

download As I sit here in my dressing gown in front of the fire, loaded with a nasty cold, surrounded by used tissues and with the rain pouring down outside this Sunday morning, it would be easy to start to feel a little sorry for myself. After all, part of the reason that we moved to the Dordogne was to get away from the dark, wet Irish winters and, to be honest, it feels as if it hasn’t stopped raining here for about 10 days. On top of the yucky weather, Eoin and I have been loaded with this cold/flu thing for a week now so, in the brief moments that it has stopped raining, we haven’t really had enough energy to go out and enjoy the countryside.

Of course, I have to remind myself that all of this is just my negative perception this morning and that there have been dry spells, the occasional bit of sunshine and, despite our coughing and spluttering, we still managed to have lots of fun with Eoin’s brother and his wife who came to visit us last week.

Have you ever noticed that when your body’s immune system is struggling, your mental/emotional immune system is also lowered and negative thoughts and perceptions can sneak in much more easily than when you are feeling strong and healthy? Continue reading “Avoiding the Void”