Taking 3 Steps To Haven

No you’ve not read it wrong.

It’s haven you’re heading for. A place of greater tranquility. A sanctuary. An oasis of calm.

Away from the modern mayhem and the infernal treadmill of life.

Whilst Eddie Cochran sang of ‘Three Steps to Heaven’ the 3 steps here will also feel like heaven when they lead you to some peace and quiet for once.

Borrowing slightly from his tune, the formula for haven is very simply three steps that will stand you in good stead as “life travels on”.

When does haven come calling?

When it’s all a bit frantic. If the stress is building. Should you be in need a brief escape. Times when it’s all a bit much and you are dazzled like a rabbit in the headlights of life. Work is awful. The kids or family are driving you nuts. Vacation is still months away and the credit card bills came this morning.  When you’re tired, irritable and in need of a break. And coffee just doesn’t hack it anymore.

You need haven on Earth

Your prayers are answered. When you need solace and a refuge from life pressures, follow these 3 steps and you will find them to be haven sent.

Step 1 – Shut it Out

First and foremost give yourself space. If you don’t commit to doing so don’t expect the outside world to leave you alone. When people go on a retreat or a health spa day it’s not just the treatments or location that provide the benefit, it’s the self permission to shut out everything else to allow relaxation to set in. The outside no longer impacts on the inside.

Clear you diary in your mind then you can begin clearing it for real. Block out usual demands to provide a fresh mental canvas. Find the time for you for once that you easily find for washing, ironing, watching your favourite TV show, doing Pilates or logging onto Facebook.

I guarantee it’s there. Most people complain they never have time for themselves but, in reality, they have plenty. It’s often caught up in activities that could quite easily be re-arranged so that R & R can be allowed in.

To be in haven:  Make space

Step 2 – Shut it Off

Do you feel frazzled? On edge and at the end of your tether on a regular basis?

Not suprising when, like most others, you are connected to all manner of devices or grids full of electrical energy buzzing about you. It’s no coincidence that more people than ever feel burnt out at the same time as more people than ever are hooked up to the internet, mobile networks or social media sites.

The human body isn’t designed to be polluted by electric charges that come with this territory. You wouldn’t stand under a high voltage pylon but the cumulative effects of all the gadgets you use act as one to your own energy field. I will wager that high percentages of the world’s population are suffering from energy contamination. If water can be harmed this way so can the human body (which is 70% water) as the pioneering Dr Masaru Emoto has proved.

Switch off your supply of energy burners to help restore your own energy balance. Press the ‘off’ button on your computers, laptops, mobile phones, I-pods, televisions, radios, sat-navs and any other electrically fed contraption. Re-set your own system and protect your energy supply by disconnecting from the electron busting world currency grid.

To be in haven: Switch off, restore yourself.

Step 3 – Shut it Up

How often do you think of yourself? Or more precisely how many others do you let come first?

Haven can never be experienced by those who can’t put themselves first now and again. Ensuring others go to the back of the queue for once whilst they go to the front. Saying ‘No’ to the world and ‘Yes’ to what they want for a change.

We can all find someone else to please. Someone to do things for (who could possibly do it for their self) or other voices to respond to. Requests, questions, opinions, expectations, responsibilities (not really but we call them that!), and demands.

Demands on our time are just that; demands. Wants and calls by others to do things for them. Or moans and grumbles designed to get us to keep them happy. Like, ‘Where’s this?’, ‘I need that’ or ‘When can I have the other?’ Phew! Want, want, want. And it’s draining. Very draining.

Cut off the supply by shutting it up. Promise to close yourself off for good periods from this incessant throng of voices knocking on the door of your peaceful mind. Put up a mental sign saying, ‘Nobody Home - Call Later, Much Later!’ and imagine wearing it as you go about your own business. Chill out, take a nirvana tea-break  and relax your frayed nerves.

Teach others that you deserve some time and space and that they are capable of handling situations on their own. Or maybe it’s someone else’s turn to pitch in. Either way you’ve set a new bar. You’ve shut up the noise to discover your own voice. The one that wants to enjoy life and enjoy you.

To be in haven – Turn off the voices, listen to your own

Are you in haven yet?

Well you will be! Take these three steps and soon you will feel right up there on cloud nine.

Or as Eddie Cochran sang, “That sure seems like heaven to me”

Editors Note: Next week is going to be Optimistic Week. A feel good time on this blog looking at how to be optimistic and what joy that brings.