Invisible Moments Of Joy

When someone you love passes away, moves to the next dimension, or simply leaves your life ... you often have little flashbacks of loving moments.

You may be standing in the kitchen doing the washing-up ... and you remember your partner hugging you from behind and brushing little kisses on your neck.

You may be walking along a magnificient beach ... and you remember your father holding your hand as you watched a beautiful sunset.

You may be sitting in the sun ... and you remember the moment your child gave you a loving look and you leaned over and enjoyed a wonderful hug.

How is it that in our current relationships (romantic or familial) these moments often pass by unnoticed? How do we allow these moments of joy to become invisible in our everyday lives? We tend to be so caught up in work, career, money, routines, disagreements or arguments that we sometimes miss these glorious moments of love and joy.

How often do we stop and savour a loving joyful moment with our loved ones, our partner, our sons or daughters, or our parents? How often do we take a deep breath, open our hearts wide and truly connect to a significant person?

Being in the moment ... and cherishing each moment of love and joy ... is all we ever truly have.

Soul Therapy® is a trademark registered in the European Union, which includes the United Kingdom, and is owned by Stephen Shaw. The Soul Therapy® Centre is a virtual centre operating throughout the UK. The Soul Therapy® Centre offers Soul Therapist personal consultations in Bristol and London, and includes these therapies: psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, counselling, chakra balancing, energy healing, energy optimisation, soul retrieval, soul healing, life coaching and hypnosis. The Soul Therapy® Centre also offers Soul Therapy life-change seminars in Bristol, London and Birmingham, UK. For more information please visit the Soul Therapy website or visit Soul Therapy on facebook.

At The Watering Hole

Tap water in the UK is the cleanest and healthiest it's ever been; and it is among the most rigorously tested in the world! Bottled water advertisers play on the supposed purity and fashion image, but what about the carbon footprint?

Your typical bottled water brand has a carbon footprint 600 times that of tap water! Tap water has a much lower carbon footprint as it's piped to the customer from a local source, whereas bottled water is shipped from around the world. Only 1 in 4 bottles are recycled once the water has been consumed, adding even more to their carbon footprint.

More than a billion people - almost 1/5 of the world’s population - lack access to safe drinking water. In the UK, however, you have access to safe, pure and healthy tap water. And it's economical - a litre of tap water costs about 0.03p; an average litre of bottled water costs well over £1.

The ultimate solution is to get a water filter for home use. This will give you peace of mind about the quality and purity of water you are drinking. When you leave your home, simply take your filtered water in a refillable sports bottle. Have a look at the Fresh Water Filter Company.

If we give up the plastic bottles we can help our environment, save our oceans and leave our planet a better place for our children. What are you going to choose?

Soul Therapy® is a trademark registered in the European Union, which includes the United Kingdom, and is owned by Stephen Shaw. The Soul Therapy® Centre is a virtual centre operating throughout the UK. The Soul Therapy® Centre offers Soul Therapist personal consultations in Bristol and London, and includes these therapies: psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, counselling, chakra balancing, energy healing, energy optimisation, soul retrieval, soul healing, life coaching and hypnosis. The Soul Therapy® Centre also offers Soul Therapy life-change seminars in Bristol, London and Birmingham, UK. For more information please visit the Soul Therapy website or visit Soul Therapy on facebook.

Romantic Relationship Stages

In the beginning of a romantic relationship we experience the Honeymoon Stage which is often quite fun, passionate and romantic. This phase lasts a number of months, and the relationship seems easy and flowing. At some point, however, you transition into the Storming Stage. This is quite natural; it is a time of questions regarding compatibility and commitment. You exit the Storming Stage either by finishing the relationship or by moving to the deeper Bonding Stage.

You should seriously consider finishing the relationship if there are specific deal-breakers, e.g. addictions, physical violence, sexual infidelity, betrayal. A relationship is like a house - if you have no security, stability and trust then the foundation is weak and the house will eventually crumble.

Many people find themselves in a relationship where the Honeymoon Stage is long over, yet there are no deal breakers to indicate an exit. The relationship seems to settle into a friendship where neither person feels emotionally fulfilled. You may be living together or married for years but no longer seem be able to get your psychological, emotional, affection and sexual needs fulfilled.

One of the greatest relationship tools or skills is simply talking to your partner using these phrases: "I feel ... I need ... I gently request with no expectations or demands ..."

Unfortunately, socialisation has disempowered our ability to clearly access and express our feelings and needs. And making requests? What a thought! Yet you can revolutionise your relationship with this simple practice.

Please read this excellent book for more details: Non-Violent Communication, A Language For Life by Marshall Rosenberg (available from the relationships category of the Soul Therapy Book Shop.

Soul Therapy® is a trademark registered in the European Union, which includes the United Kingdom, and is owned by Stephen Shaw. The Soul Therapy® Centre is a virtual centre operating throughout the UK. The Soul Therapy® Centre offers Soul Therapist personal consultations in Bristol and London, and includes these therapies: psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, counselling, chakra balancing, energy healing, energy optimisation, soul retrieval, soul healing, life coaching and hypnosis. The Soul Therapy® Centre also offers Soul Therapy life-change seminars in Bristol, London and Birmingham, UK. For more information please visit the Soul Therapy website or visit Soul Therapy on facebook.

Save Our Oceans And Beaches

According to the Surfrider Foundation and Rise Above Plastics there is a section of the Pacific Ocean where 100 million tons of plastic swirl in a vortex of currents. Plastic does not biodegrade; it only photodegrades - the sun's rays break it down into smaller and smaller pieces. These small pieces of plastic are mistaken for food by birds and marine life. The number of suspended marine plastics in this vortex currently outnumbers plankton by forty-six to one.

1 million seabirds and 500,000 marine mammals die globally each year due to ingestion of, or entanglement in, plastics.

Plastic is forever, with virtually every piece of petroleum based plastic ever made still in existence. That's why it's so critical to our oceans and beaches that we dramatically reduce our use of plastics.

We can make a difference for our world's oceans and beaches. Let's pledge to rise above plastics today.

Remember the three R's: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Soul Therapy® is a trademark registered in the European Union, which includes the United Kingdom, and is owned by Stephen Shaw. The Soul Therapy® Centre is a virtual centre operating throughout the UK. The Soul Therapy® Centre offers Soul Therapist personal consultations in Bristol and London, and includes these therapies: psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, counselling, chakra balancing, energy healing, energy optimisation, soul retrieval, soul healing, life coaching and hypnosis. The Soul Therapy® Centre also offers Soul Therapy life-change seminars in Bristol, London and Birmingham, UK. For more information please visit the Soul Therapy website or visit Soul Therapy on facebook.

What Is Romantic Love?

Can we love and give without an agenda, without holding on to a desired outcome, without expectations? Can we learn to simply enjoy our romantic relationship without slipping into blame, dredging up the past or pushing our stories onto the other? Are criticism and praise merely flip sides of the same coin, and how do these truly help a relationship?

What is it we seek in our core? Is it the words 'I love you'? What do these words mean? Do we allow each other the freedom to 'be who I am' and then love each other with compassion, understanding and acceptance?

Can we learn to simply be in the moment in our relationship, and focus on our core needs of heart-connection, emotional intimacy, sharing and affection?

Kahlil Gibran in his book The Prophet says:

Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.

To know the pain of too much tenderness.

To be wounded by your own understanding of love;

And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;

To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;

To return home at eventide with gratitude;

And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

Soul Therapy® is a trademark registered in the European Union, which includes the United Kingdom, and is owned by Stephen Shaw. The Soul Therapy® Centre is a virtual centre operating throughout the UK. The Soul Therapy® Centre offers Soul Therapist personal consultations in Bristol and London, and includes these therapies: psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, counselling, chakra balancing, energy healing, energy optimisation, soul retrieval, soul healing, life coaching and hypnosis. The Soul Therapy® Centre also offers Soul Therapy life-change seminars in Bristol, London and Birmingham, UK. For more information please visit the Soul Therapy website or visit Soul Therapy on facebook.

Wikileaks: Truth In Media

According to Global Issues: "51% of the world’s 100 wealthiest bodies are corporations". These corporations are wealthier than many nations!

At the same time, at least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.

Who is controlling the world's wealth? Who has access to most of the world's resources? A small and powerful elite, that's who! Kept in place not by the poorest 80% of humanity, but by the relatively comfortable middle-class who have been turned into debt slaves. And by nations who have been turned into debt slaves by the IMF and rich countries.

Most people believe that capitalism is a great system, that it drives innovation and prosperity, and that it rewards hard work. However, the original idea was trickle-down economics. As the rich capitalists got richer, the prosperity was meant to trickle down to the middle-class and the poor; everyone was supposed to get wealthier, healthier and have better living standards! After 30 years, commencing with Reagan and Thatcher, there is no evidence of trickle-down economics. Instead the gap between the rich and the poor has widened enormously!

Why have the people, the voters, allowed this to happen? The answer is simple. Corporations own, influence, and lobby governments to meet their need for accruing more wealth and power. Revolving door policies allow Government members to move into lucrative business positions after they resign - to repay favours granted to those very companies. Even in the USA, where the revolving door is closing, there are still powerful lobbyists influencing and controlling the Government.

And just like George Orwell's 1984, our thoughts and ideas are clouded and controlled by government- and business-controlled media and spin. Who decides what gets published in newspapers, television and magazines?

I challenge you to read The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, and Flat Earth News by Nick Davies, both available at the Soul Therapy Book Shop.

Now for the good news: Wikileaks is one website that might actually be a true free press, and the beginning of a cultural and ecomomic revolution. Please support them, and please spread the word!

Soul Therapy® is a trademark registered in the European Union, which includes the United Kingdom, and is owned by Stephen Shaw. The Soul Therapy® Centre is a virtual centre operating throughout the UK. The Soul Therapy® Centre offers Soul Therapist personal consultations in Bristol and London, and includes these therapies: psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, counselling, chakra balancing, energy healing, energy optimisation, soul retrieval, soul healing, life coaching and hypnosis. The Soul Therapy® Centre also offers Soul Therapy life-change seminars in Bristol, London and Birmingham, UK. For more information please visit the Soul Therapy website or visit Soul Therapy on facebook.

Dancing In The Rain

What if you pray every morning for the highest good to come across your path ... and set intentions for your highest benefit ... and life happens?

No matter how loving, kind and spiritual you are ... life happens. No matter how much you work to help others ... life happens. You are not exempt from the trials and tribulations of life just because you are a light-worker or a loving humanitarian or a generous human being.

What do you do when the recession has halved your income? When your romantic life seems full of struggle and arguments? When you can't see the way forward in your life? When someone you love is struck down with terminal cancer? When the sun doesn't shine and dark clouds fill the sky?

The answer? YOU DANCE IN THE RAIN!

Viktor Frankl M.D., Ph.D. (1905-1997) was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. His wife and parents were killed in the concentration camps. Yet Viktor was able to emotionally survive and overcome because of his attitude - to find meaning in life despite suffering. Frankl was the founder of logotherapy, and wrote a best-selling book called Man's Search for Meaning.

Frankl said: "We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work (e.g. writing, cooking, building) or doing a deed (e.g. job, sport, charity); (2) by experiencing something (like a sunset) or encountering someone (e.g. love, friendship, family); (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering (loving and living in spite of challenges and suffering)."

Soul Therapy® is a trademark registered in the European Union, which includes the United Kingdom, and is owned by Stephen Shaw. The Soul Therapy® Centre is a virtual centre operating throughout the UK. The Soul Therapy® Centre offers Soul Therapist personal consultations in Bristol and London, and includes these therapies: psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, counselling, chakra balancing, energy healing, energy optimisation, soul retrieval, soul healing, life coaching and hypnosis. The Soul Therapy® Centre also offers Soul Therapy life-change seminars in Bristol, London and Birmingham, UK. For more information please visit the Soul Therapy website or visit Soul Therapy on facebook.

Desiderata - Poem

This is a beautiful poem written in 1920 by Max Ehrmann.

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.

Take kindly to the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Soul Therapy® is a trademark registered in the European Union, which includes the United Kingdom, and is owned by Stephen Shaw. The Soul Therapy® Centre is a virtual centre operating throughout the UK. The Soul Therapy® Centre offers Soul Therapist personal consultations in Bristol and London, and includes these therapies: psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, counselling, chakra balancing, energy healing, energy optimisation, soul retrieval, soul healing, life coaching and hypnosis. The Soul Therapy® Centre also offers Soul Therapy life-change seminars in Bristol, London and Birmingham, UK. For more information please visit the Soul Therapy website or visit Soul Therapy on facebook.

The Magic And Challenges Of Life

Many of us have the idea that at some point in life, whether through will or intention or faith or prayer or hard work, everything will start to be really wonderful. The difficulties we experience will subside and there will be more and more moments of happiness, bliss and peace.

Have a look at your body right now. What is magic about your body? What do you like? What do you find challenging, e.g. an injury, a disability, or the way something looks?

Now look at your mind. What is magic about your mind? What do you like about it? What do you find challenging, e.g. you get gripped by thoughts about the past, you berate yourself?

Now look at your emotional self. What is magic about your emotions? What do you like about your emotions? What do you find challenging, e.g. you are not assertive enough?

Now look at your lover or partner or children. What is magic about them? What do you find really challenging?

Finally, have a good look at your life. What is magic about your life? What challenges are you experiencing?

As you journey through life you will always experience both magic and challenges. This is part of the adventure and part of the reason you are alive. Magic inspires and makes you feel good, whereas challenges push you in new directions and expand your thinking, understanding and way of living.

Now ... what would happen if you let go of the concept of magic and challenges? What would you experience if you began to accept your body, mind, emotions, lover, partner, children and Life just as they are?

How would your life be if you were fully present in each moment, fully present with your body and mind and emotions, and fully present with your lover, partner, children and Life?

Soul Therapy® is a trademark registered in the European Union, which includes the United Kingdom, and is owned by Stephen Shaw. The Soul Therapy® Centre is a virtual centre operating throughout the UK. The Soul Therapy® Centre offers Soul Therapist personal consultations in Bristol and London, and includes these therapies: psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, counselling, chakra balancing, energy healing, energy optimisation, soul retrieval, soul healing, life coaching and hypnosis. The Soul Therapy® Centre also offers Soul Therapy life-change seminars in Bristol, London and Birmingham, UK. For more information please visit the Soul Therapy website or visit Soul Therapy on facebook.

Mindfulness Meditation

What is meditation?

When you were born your mind was clear and beautiful like a crystal lake. This beautiful clear lake has gradually been filled with pollution for as long as you have been alive. Pollution results from all the shoulds, musts, rules, measures, media, culture, religion, school, parents and the list goes on. Meditation simply clears this pollution, revealing the beautiful crystal-clear lake that is always present, and gradually helps you discover your true nature and deeper reality.

How do you meditate?

Meditation is not about uncomfortable postures, concentration, mantras or prayers. It is not associated or linked to any religion, teacher, guru or spiritual philosophy. Meditation is about You. It is an individual practice; it is your journey into freedom and peace.

Simply put, meditation is the ability to distance yourself from the mind. Imagine you are sitting on a hill and watching the motorway traffic just a short distance away. Meditation is learning to watch the traffic of the mind, the endless flow of thoughts and emotions that fills your head. Most of us are lost in this traffic, instead of simply watching it travel past.

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is a form of meditation. It is something you do with your eyes closed for 20-30 minutes when you are watching the traffic of your mind moving past. When you find yourself lost in your thoughts or emotions, simply notice your breath and watch again.

Mindfulness is also a meditation you can do every moment of every day. With practice you learn to notice your breath and watch what is happening around you. What are you seeing, hearing, thinking, feeling? Instead of getting lost in all the stimulation you begin to mindfully observe the events and people nearby in a relaxed non-judgemental way. More information at Soul Therapy Mindfulness Meditation.

Soul Therapy® is a trademark registered in the European Union, which includes the United Kingdom, and is owned by Stephen Shaw. The Soul Therapy® Centre is a virtual centre operating throughout the UK. The Soul Therapy® Centre offers Soul Therapist personal consultations in Bristol and London, and includes these therapies: psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, counselling, chakra balancing, energy healing, energy optimisation, soul retrieval, soul healing, life coaching and hypnosis. The Soul Therapy® Centre also offers Soul Therapy life-change seminars in Bristol, London and Birmingham, UK. For more information please visit the Soul Therapy website or visit Soul Therapy on facebook.