Join me tomorrow evening 6.30-8.30pm for The Mind Spa at Molton House, private members club, London W1.
It’s an evening for professionals, business owners and those looking for peace and progress in all aspects of their lives.
It’s really an opportunity to connect to yourself: we have such busy minds and such busy lives. It will help you to relax, chill our and take stock. There’ll be a short relaxation meditation led by my guest and friend, yoga teacher to execs, Thierry Giunta. They’ll also be an opportunity to connect with others; many networking occasions can be soul-less. By connecting more deeply with ourselves we tend to be more open to others. The evening is an ideal space to make the kind of contacts that may be useful for us personally, professionally and business. I will also be doing a very short exercise to help you focus on personal and professional priorities.
Tomorrow is attracting a fair amount of media interest and the attendees also include a number of people from healing professions as well as some who are in corporate life or changing career. If that appeals then join me and our host Jessica Huie of JHPR for a lovely evening.
The Mind Spa
“Connect & progress”
@ Molton House,
43 South Molton Street | London W1K 5RS
6.30-8.30pm Tue 13 July 2010
“If we were to stop this game of hide and seek - who would we be?”
It’s quite possible that life can be completely bypassed in the search for happiness, fulfilment, wisdom, wealth - and even in the search for self, love or spirituality.
What would your life be if you were to stop seeking to find completion in any place, person, post or possession? It is easy to become possessed by these things and by the thoughts of what they may bring. It is easy to get lost in what has been, might have been, should have been, yet might be… and by what you’d like to be and see.
But what if the search were to fall away? Who in fact is seeking anyway? What is the problem that needs to be solved or indeed resolved?
Where is the line between you and me? Where is the divide between what you seek and what you see? Where is the line between what you experience personally and what you understand to be happening outside and globally?
Are you who you think you are - or are you what resides below, beyond and between those thoughts. Ironically by going in search of who is looking may be more illuminating. What if you were the hider as well as the seeker?
If these questions resonate with you you may find that Seekers Corner does too. It will especially resonate if you’re keen to let the questions and need for answers to dissolve. It was founded by a good friend of mine who went in search of the answers to these questions and found nothing - and perhaps it is nothing rather than something that is where you may wish to look. It may be the one place you haven’t looked. Don’t be surprised if you don’t find what you’re looking for : )
Rasheed Ogunlaru is a leading coach, motivational speaker and author of The Gift of Inner Success
As the world looks on at the UK election results and what happens next remember that the outcome is actually very clear… YOU are the Prime Minister.
Rasheed Ogunlaru is a leading coach, motivational speaker and author of The Gift of Inner Success. His clients include entertainers, enterpreneurs and organisations. He helps people find fulfilment in all areas of their lives from within.He regular speaks on life, work and relationship issues in the media - inc appearances on ITV News and BBC Breakfast
I have 5 questions for you. Four of them came to me a couple of days ago and the last yesterday. I asked them of the professionals / entrepreneurs at my new event The Mind Spa yesterday at Molton House in central London. And I invite you to ask them of yourself.
The awareness, asking of and gently acting on what emerges may be enriching and enlightening:
1) One thing about you that’s already great: Too often we overlook the magic we already have. Too often we see the imperfections and overlook our strengths and thus miss our possibilities. So many people I coach struggle with this. They have been blinded by - and bought into - the lies that they have been told about themselves throughout their lives.
2)One thing thing to let go of to create space: Perhaps there are physical things that are cluttering your home/ work space and hampering your emotional space. Let them go. Perhaps there are other issues to let go of.
3) One thing to accept and embrace: Sometimes in life there is no problem and some times the is no solution. The gift of life is simply to embrace it. Spend some time with this question gently.
4) One thing to focus on on the the coming hours and days: Too often our minds are ineffective as our attention is spit into so many areas of concern and distraction. What one thing would make the most positive impact on your life - and based on that what should your attention, earnestness and action be focused on.
5) One person who can help you along the way: No-one is an island. No one or nation is completely independent without relationship to another. We are part of one whole. The more we fight that actually re-inforces that fact. What person can help you with the personal, professional or other concerns that face you. Sit with this. It may be someone you know by name or a type of person you need to seek. Who may be able to help you find this person - where might you begin.
About three and a half years ago I met Val Hood who was keen to leave behind her secretarial business to focus purely on her work as a medium. I’d never met a medium before, and as with everyone I work with, my job is simply to help them to find and be themselves. We worked together for a couple of months on Val’s goals and dreams and I was thrilled to catch up with her recently to hear about her success, tour or Australia and New Zealand and her forthcoming book. Here’s her story in her words.
Over the last few years there has been an increasing focus on ‘happiness’. The media, psychologists, academics and various pundits have all explored ‘what’ makes us happy. Countless people I meet feel that they should be happy. Perhaps you are one of them; waiting to find happiness at some point in the future when you arrive at the right job, relationship, life balance, income level… or whatever.
The ’sad’ truth is that happiness has a direct relationship to sadness. They are mutually dependent. You cannot have one without the other. Just like ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and all the rest … We live in a dualistic world of these opposites. But all opposites are relative. They are related because they spring from one.
In order to ‘arrive ‘ at contentment one must accept and embrace this. You cannot have sunshine without rain. The embracing of these facts of life could be called wisdom.
This wisdom of course brings into question the very premise of everything we do. Because everything we do is based on goals, aspirations, improvement, enhancement. The idea that you are flawed now but can be perfect later. Meanwhile the magic of life passes you by.
Stop. The invitation of life, as I put it, is to ‘become who you are’. This is a paradox because you already ‘are’ and you are lost in this idea of ‘becoming’. In other words the invitation is to look before, beyond and between all the notions you have been fed and gathered and to realise that these are just clothes that you wear. At best they are aspects of who you are.
So if you are ‘unhappy’ with who you are it is no surprise because you are not what you think you are. You are what resides beneath.
Rasheed is the author of The Gift of Inner Success
Funny how we obsess about the junk we feed our mouths and overlook that which feeds our minds.
This time of year our physically well-being is something we tend to, quite rightly, turn our attention to. Perhaps you’ve tried or considered dieting, losing weight, stopping smoking, detoxing and new habits. This can have all sorts of benefits - one of which is that it actually helps re-balance mind and body, because we tend to overly live life in the mind.
But while you may have (often) thought about what you are feeding your body, how often have you thought about what you are feeding your mind? Perhaps you are a parent and you may be quite mindful about what your child’s mind consumes, but what about your mind? What has been the mental diet you have consumed throughout your lifetime and what has the result been?
If you suffer from stress, unhappiness, anxiety, low self esteem and self-doubt, more often than not these are dis-eases of the mind. They may well, sooner or later, have an impact on your body, but the root is your mind.
The invitation is for you first to become aware of this. As you become aware of this a shift can begin to happen.
To help this shift I invite you to do nothing… That’s right, most of the time we do something: we take action, set goals, make plans, set to work etc. But by doing nothing I am inviting you to take a break from your mind.
Switching off the TV, going for a walk in the park, meditation, exercise, being silent are all ways of helping this process. Bit by bit your over-interest in an overly-noisy mind will begin.
Through this space it is possible to arrive (back) at peace of mind. You will be surprised how appealing and even healing this is. You will be surprised how many of your ‘issues’ with you and others will fall away. You will find yourself being more quiet, content, alert, compassionate. Far less interested in speculation, strife, arguing, fighting, gossiping, comparing, worrying. Your sense of self will shift and become more light and subtle.
Rasheed is a leading motivational speaker and author of The Gift of Inner Success.
“If you look at things differently you will see things differently.” - Rasheed Ogunlaru
In life it’s easy to get caught up in the same way of seeing things. While this may be fine, it can mean that you get caught up in a narrow view of seeing yourself and everything else and it may be this view rather than the realities of life that can be holding you back.
Just as stepping back a few spaces can broaden your view on a landscape, the same is true by stepping back and taking a wider view of yourself, your situation, the people around you and the world.
Whether you are are finding challenges at work, at home or in your relationships I invite you to look afresh and to look again. You may be pleasantly surprised by what you see.
Rasheed Ogunlaru is a leading life coach, motivational speaker and business/ corporate coach.
Yesterday I gave a talk to a leading agency that helps people make the move from redundancy to new jobs /careers. As always I spoke about the importance of the simple things: being oneself and connecting to others.
Whatever your age, life stage and aspirations, you will only find the fulfilment that you seek by listening to your ’self’.
But do not be fooled. The mistake often made is to believe that you need to be somehow other than, greater than or different to who you are. So many people I meet - and I’ve been there - spend a years trying to cultivate themselves into something that is but a shadow of how magical one that they already are. It is like wallpapering over a stunning marble wall that you are overlooking.
Stress and unhappiness in careers and relationships are almost always symptoms of not listening to oneself. It requires courage but it is the only way to find fulfilment in all areas of your life.
“Seek out not those who want to improve or change you… but those who point you to you” Rasheed Ogunlaru
Rasheed is a leading life coach, motivational speaker and author of The Gift of Inner Success.
As you stress, strive and struggle remember that who you think you are is only one aspect of who you are. What you think you must become - and all it’s holds… goals, dreams and ambitions are just one branch of life - the branch of the mind. The other aspect is not really about gathering, gaining, growing or even knowing - it is about another more subtle type of discovery. It is the the desire to find one self. It is a call to re-member. The challenge here is that you are looking for what is looking. You are looking to become that which you are. The more mindful you become of this play of life and light the the less weighed down by mind you will be. The more you will be awake and available to yourself. The dream chasing and the dreambuilding will continue, that is the nature of shape and form. But life, and thus your very essence, is the space as much as the substance, the unmanifest as well as the material.
On a ‘practical’ level as a ‘life coach and motivational speaker’ I meet people all the time who are pursuing goals on the one hand but seek the peace of mind that is self-realisation on the other. Both hands are of one body. Being aware of this and shifting attention out beyond the mind will soften the mental ties. This peaceful awareness is fulfilment.
Leading life coach and inner fulfilment speaker, Rasheed Ogunlaru
explores how to balance being true to your ‘self' with finding a
‘meaningful' life path in today's material world. [read more / hear extracts]
