Maria Robins's Blog

It’s the first day of 2020 and I had every intention of writing a blog today. Something meaningful and interesting that would be fitting for the first day of not only a new year, but a new decade as well. I had every intention of writing a list of resolutions for the year also – not a long list but rather a few simple notes that were important to me for the coming 365 days, and generally.Instead I did neither. In fact I did not much of anything at all. I finally put my feet up for an hour or two and read a book – the first time I have relaxed this holiday break. The lead up to Christmas was the usual crazy time and then the few days between then and this new year I have spent in a frenzied state attempting to declutter the house and the office before the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve. I was even shredding old papers last night at 11.30 pm when I realised I had forgotten to do so. Today I got up and felt like I had hit the wall. So I took some time out. I read a book for an hour or two, which is just about one of my favourite things in the world to do but which I never seem to have time for. Then, at the time when I had intended writing the blog, I visited a friend instead, and when I got back, instead of going to the laptop, I watched some light TV. Now it’s an hour and a half before the second day of this new year enters and suddenly all I want to do is go to bed.So there is no interesting and meaningful blog to be written today. But perhaps that is the whole point. How many of us push ourselves to do things until we are absolutely exhausted and have nothing left to give?Some of us will have written our New Year’s resolutions down, others of us won’t have. It doesn’t matter. I know what is important to me this year and I don’t need to write it all down, or at least not today. The sky won’t fall in if I don’t make a plan on the first of the month. So I will post this blog and perhaps finish it tomorrow but the resolutions could go something like this.Lighten up. Don’t push myself so hard, it doesn’t matter if I don’t get it all done right this second.Cultivate more compassion and less judgment.Be kind to all living things, to the planet, to myself.Laugh more. Stress less.Go to bed earlier!Spend more time in nature. Make time for meditation.Spread as much love as possible.Trust that we are all becoming part of a more loving, kind and compassionate world.Choose peace. Happy 2020. May it be wonderful for us all.

Often we perceive things as real, when they are not. We take something, perhaps a comment or action someone made that unsettled us, and we make up a story in our heads around this perception. Then we look for clues or affirmations to add to it to confirm to ourselves that our ‘story’ is correct.Whatever perspective we are viewing things from (happy or sad) it is guaranteed that we can start to find more and more things that build into the story we are creating in our minds. And since what we focus on expands, pretty soon we actually do create a reality based on what we perceived as having happened, because by reacting from what can often be a completely inaccurate perception in the first place, we put out the energy of that perception and attract it back to ourselves.If you’re old enough you might remember the move ‘ Sliding Doors,’ which starred Gwyneth Paltrow, where we watch a parallel universe unfold based on a decision she makes to do with catching a train. Our thoughts are the same. If we don’t bring them into check quickly when we are feeling negative, examine what we are thinking and shift our perception from negative to positive, or at least neutral (observing but not reacting) then we can easily set off a sliding door reality.To stop that happening we must examine every thought we have. When something unsettles us and we start to form a story around it, pause for a moment and consider, ‘Could I be wrong in that perception and in how I’m planning to react? Could he/she/they perhaps have meant something else? When my supervisor said, ‘We won’t need you to come in next week so take a few days off,’ could they actually have wanted me to have a rest because I’ve been working overtime, and it’s not that they’re trying to get rid of me?’‘When that guy I went on a date with bailed on me and said he’s still not over his ex, does that mean he actually just isn’t ready to date again, and not that he doesn’t want me?’‘When my friend said she didn’t want to catch up for coffee because she had some stuff to do she’d forgotten about, maybe she really did have stuff to do and wasn’t actually trying to avoid seeing me.’Are these all just stories I’m making up in my head that aren’t true? Am I creating a sliding door of thoughts that are careering off down the wrong train track?If the answer is yes, change the thought/s. Stop it before it starts.Pause. Breathe. Observe. Relax.

With so much going on in the world these days, it's all too easy to get bogged down in the stresses of everyday life. Everything seems to get on top of us and we start thinking about everything that is wrong or worrying us, rather than everything that is right in our lives. It can happen without us realising what we are doing when we are rushing from one thing to the next but once we start focusing on what we don't want, it is a given that we will bring more of those things our way.A great exercise to keep ourselves on track throughout the day is to take time out once an hour and pause for a moment. Take a few deep breaths and make a conscious point of focusing on something in your life that you are grateful for. Think about whatever this might be and really 'feel' the gratitude and happiness of that thing. Keep breathing slowly and deeply while you do this.Try and do this once an hour, especially if you are very busy. It only takes a minute and it's like a mini re-set for the soul helping you to stay focused and balanced.

It's all too easy to get bogged down in the stresses of everyday life. Everything seems to get on top of us and we start thinking about everything that is wrong, rather than everything that is right in our lives. It can happen without us realising what we are doing when we are rushing from one thing to the next but once we start focusing on what we don't want, it is a given that we will bring more of those things our way.A great exercise to keep ourselves on track throughout the day is to take time out to pause once an hour. Take a few deep breaths and make a conscious point of focusing on something in your life that you are grateful for. Think about whatever this might be and really 'feel' the gratitude and happiness of that thing. Keep breathing slowly and deeply while you do this.Try and do this once an hour, especially if you are very busy. It only takes a minute and it's like a mini re-set for the soul helping you to stay focused and balanced.

Sometimes things might seem like they’re out of control in our lives. Our worries and fears take over and we find it difficult to visualize and stay focused on our dreams and what we want to achieve – because our current reality feels so stressful. We start focusing on all the things we're worried about which only makes things worse and then we fall into a state of fear.When you feel like you are drowning in a sea of uncertainty, picture a lifeboat of calm and certainty floating right beside you. Reach out and grab hold of that lifeboat and know that it’s OK. Trust that you are now being safely carried to shore. You don’t need to know how, you just need to know that in the vastness of all your worries and fears, you are holding on to that lifeboat of calm and certainty and All is Well. Trust in that. Really believe it.This will switch the energy and before you know it things will have changed so wonderfully for the better, that you will wonder what you were ever worrying about in the first place. Try it and see. You can drown in your fears and get nowhere except sucked down further, or believe that you are safe and supported and that you are being carried safely in the direction you need to go.

Can you think of a time when you felt exceptionally happy – perhaps for no particular reason except that the sun was out, you were having a good day and you felt in an excellent mood? We are all made up of energy so when you feel that way, you are in alignment with the universal energy of All That Is, which in its purest form is that of love and happiness. When you are feeling not so great, then you have stepped out of alignment with that vibrational harmony.If you can think of it this way, it might help. Think about tuning a station on a radio and if you don’t have it on the right frequency then the music can sound distorted and harsh. But as soon as you tune it to the right frequency, the music rings out as clear as a bell and you can hear it perfectly. The same goes for our energy. When we are tuned in correctly, our lives flow perfectly and peacefully. When we’re not, it’s the opposite.If you realize you have somehow got out of alignment, you can re-tune your vibrational station. How do you do this? It’s easy. Pause for a minute, take a few slow deep breaths, take your mind off whatever is bothering you and think about nice things instead to re-align yourself. Keep breathing slowly and deeply as you do this. You will be surprised at how quickly you can bring yourself back into balance.I pause, take 3 breathsThink of nice things insteadTo keep my mind calmAnd to clear our my headExcerpt from I AM Calm: How To Leave Your Worries Behind - https://amzn.to/2MgFZSV

When you first wake up in the morning, set yourself up for a good day by training your mind to immediately be thankful and by making your first thoughts, good thoughts. Don’t even open your eyes. Just take a minute to enjoy the sensation of that half awake state and imagine yourself basking in the glow of universal love and feeling how good that feels. While you do this think about something pleasant that makes you happy and enjoy the feeling of that too. Send out thanks to the Universe, God or whatever your personal name preference for Universal Love is and bask in that feeling some more. Say to yourself:I AM full of feel good pheromones today!I AM going to have a great day!Smile because it’s true. Then go out into the world and share it with others. When someone smiles at you, unless you are devoid of all emotion, you cannot help but smile back. So make a point of smiling at everyone you meet so that they can’t help but return it. Start a smile ripple effect.Have fun with it. And keep telling yourself - the feel good pheromones are out in force!Then watch what delightful things happen.

‘Find 10 things that you can be glad of each dayAnd when you do this, more will then come your way...’(Excerpt from I AM Magic: How To Create Your Best Life)When we are thankful for or glad about something, we put energy out into the world that is akin to skimming a stone across a lake creating an ongoing ripple effect. It feels good to focus on things we are grateful for and by doing so, we create more and more feel good energy. That energy in turn draws more of the same to us and suddenly we find that things are improving every day. Have you ever had a day where you’ve got up in a great mood, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, everything has gone well throughout the day and as it’s gone well you have felt more and more happy and appreciative of the excellent day you’re having. This is because when things are going well it is easy to feel glad and happy and that in turn draws more of the same in.On the converse, you get out of bed and stub your toe on the bedside table which puts you in a bad mood, then you knock something off the vanity which drops on the sore toe, you can’t find the other shoe to the pair you want to wear, then you spill your coffee, drop your keys and on it goes. Everything seems to go from bad to worse and by the end of the day it’s fair to say that you are in a pretty bad mood. If at the first moment that you do something less than pleasant such as stub your toe, you either laugh about it, or pay it no heed, or even bless it and use it as an opportunity and sign to take your time and be mindful, then you can switch the energy around completely. If you focus on good energy then you will expand that. If you choose to focus on negative energy then you expand that too. The choice is yours.List 10 things each day to be grateful for, even if they are simple things like:I AM grateful I got that carpark outside the store today.I AM grateful for the time I spent with my daughter, son, family member, friend today.I AM grateful the sun was shining today.I AM grateful to have food on my table.I AM grateful that I have a roof over my head.I AM grateful to have clothes to wear.I AM grateful for...insert whatever else you are grateful for

I received a timely reminder this week about the importance of taking time out to play.I try to make a point at the end of each day to sit in the park under a tree for at least 10-15 minutes, simply to relax and unwind a little. A few days ago I was in my usual spot thinking that I really didn’t have time as I had left it later than usual and needed to get back to tidy up some work things and cook dinner. However I continued to sit there as the grass felt so nice and the sun was out.After a few minutes I noticed a swallow that seemed to be having trouble with a white feather that I presumed it had picked up to carry off to line its nest. It kept dropping the feather and swooping down and grabbing it, only to fly up and then drop it again. After a while of watching this, I realised that the swallow wasn’t having trouble at all. It was actually playing its own little game and having a delightful time with it. It would fly up about ¾ of a large tree height and then drop the feather, watch it float down and just as it was a few feet off the grass it would swoop down, grab it, fly up and repeat the process all over again. It was such a delight to see this little show of pure joy that I ended up staying to watch, until eventually, seeing his message had got through to me, the swallow finished his game and carried his prize off up over the treetops.What a beautiful, timely reminder from this dear little bird to remember to enjoy the simple things in life - to take time out to relax and play, and to have fun doing so.

Welcome! This blog has come about because I often like to send family and friends little daily notes or reminders to help them feel positive and uplifted and then realized that I could also share these with others by writing a blog. This isn’t a blog where you will get a post every day, or even every week, as I don’t want to bombard anyone with information, but rather I will only post when I feel I have something relevant to say or contribute, that I think people might like. Hope you enjoy and always remember -Let there be magic in your day. Focus on the good and the rest will fall away.