Do You Know When To Stop?

Do You Know When To Stop?

After jumping out on a colleague from behind an office column and shouting stop, it occurred to me not everyone knows when to stop. That particular colleague just had to be approached about his cucumbers. Cucumbers? Yes! He has been sneaking around the office wielding organic cucumbers and depositing them on unsuspecting colleagues’ desks. I caught him the other morning in the very act of cucumber delivery. Something about it rang alarm bells. Since I run a social media team for a large corporation, I considered how best I could utilise the covert cucumber mission to best effect. So in the Social Media meeting today, we came up with all manner of cucumber anecdotes and titles for the blog including the Cucumber Surprise, Covert Cucumbers, Corporate Cucumbers and how to make your cucumber grow by speaking to it (the last one was a considered a little too rude to corporately publish - booo!!!). To accompany the article we decided to get the official photographer to photograph cucumbers with ‘googly’ doll eyes so we could maintain surprise cucumber expressions around the office. Of course we do very corporate articles too; however, I am having two weeks off work from Friday to focus on finishing my current book and felt the need for a little mischief prior to having a holiday. That way any repercussions would have been complete by the time I leave.

The cucumber interview questions included

‘How did you discover your cucumber love?’

‘Do you talk to your cucumber to make it grow?’

‘What attracted you to cucumbers?’

‘If you were a cucumber what advice would you give?’

‘Of all the cucumbers you have grown, has one particular cucumber jumped out at you?’

The thing is the blog has to be approved, so we will see what happens. 

So back to my original question – do you know when to stop? This covers many topics? Exercise, food, health and book promotion.

In terms of exercise where do you have to reach to stop? Today I crossed a paddleboard threshold: a line of yellow buoys mark my limits. I usually stay within them but today I was blown beyond them. Once I had experienced ‘unchartered’ paddle territory, I turned the board and paddled in. I realised I had gone beyond my limit and had to stop and turn around. That made me question when is the point when we know when to stop. So how ill do you have to become before you actually stop and rest? I watch so many people at work descend into complete flu and infect the whole office before they take the day off. Their martyrdom should have stopped and saved others from the infection.

What about food? If you were in front of a buffet when do you decide when to stop? Do you have to feel ill? I worked on cruise ships for years and watched gluttonous buffet bonanzas. People kept eating and eating and certainly did not know when to stop! The attitude was: I have paid for it and I want to get my money’s worth.

Finally, I have noticed that when it comes to product promotion and book promotion, there is a finite time that things can be rammed down an audience’s throat before the audience become blasé, bored or ignore a repetitious. So the question for me is when do you stop? Tonight is my final night of promoting The Hairy-Legged Mystery and Tingle Dingle and The Little Mischiefs. The way I see it is you can do as much as you can to let the world know and then those little literary lovelies have to fend for themselves. It is a case of freeing the pigeon and letting it navigate its way home. In this case I released two fun children’s stories into the world, let the world know and now it is time to stop, move on and allow them to find their readers. Nice eh? It is great to know when it is time to stop and start new.

Enjoy my books at the following link:

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If this can save a life... DVT

If this can save a life then it is worth it...

So do you know what deep vein thrombosis is? It is a blood clot that congeals and blocks the deeper veins of the body. It can occur in any part of the body; however, it usually turns up in the legs. You may wonder why I write this; well, I always thought that DVT was for people who drank too much on planes, were obese or old... Yep I know... a narrow way of looking at it. However, I have just returned from holiday and realised that I had a deep vein thrombosis. I was very lucky because I am a little bit focused on my health and fitness. I compete at rowing, can be found on a paddleboard at six in the morning. I go to the gym six days a week. I don't drink alcohol and I make sure I drink around 3 litres of water a day. My main belief is that the body is a phenomenal piece of transport to carry the soul through life. So I make sure that it has all the nutrition it needs, is massages and maintained to its absolute ability. After-all who wants their transport to break down?

Now imagine my shock when I felt a sudden pain in the back of my leg during the flight back from Thailand. It felt like someone had pressed into my leg and something was clogged. You know how in the night you have a cramp, well this was a feeling of a long thing cramp down the middle of my calf. It happened while I was asleep in an exit row isle seat. What made it all the more surprising is that I had drunk 3 litres of water, had walked around and had leg room. I was not your typical candidate. What made it stranger is that when I woke up, the voice of intuition shouted DVT into my mind. I wasn't going to ignore it.


When I arrived home I went to hospital and stated that I thought I had Deep Vein Thrombosis. They looked at me curiously and took blood tests. I was correct and then proceeded to have scans to understand the extent to which I was affected. Now before we go any further, I am not writing this for sympathy or anything like that, however, so many people ignore the signs and that is what leads to potential death. If the condition is not treated there can be a situation where the clot becomes loose, travels around the body and can block the heart or lungs. The reason I know this is because it has happened to three of my friends, two of whom are athletes. They all survived; however, the pain they experienced resulted in morphine intake. They both survived and I only found out they had experienced this when I let them know why I could not train for racing for the next couple of months. So Deep Vein Thrombosis is not limited to sludgy sorts who don't care for themselves (that line is not going to make me popular - oh well!) It can affect anyone. I found this out when talking to a nurse who advised me of late numerous fitness people had ended up in the DVT specialist ward, all of whom were completely bemused it had happened to them. Most only went to hospital when they collapsed. This is why I write this... It is worth catching it early and better to get to the hospital and be given the all clear.

So after chatting to the whole of the DVT waiting room, each identified their issue with the following systems on or after leaving a plane (please note - DVT can happen from sitting for extended periods of time in any situation).

A feeling like cramp in the middle of a muscle as though someone had pressed hard into the muscle.
A muscle spasm.
The leg completely swelling up.
A sharp pain along a line within your body.
Collapsing unexpectedly.
Becoming short of breath - this was one chap's pulmonary embolism.

Obviously there are far more symptoms; however, I am referencing the people in the waiting room. I am not a medical expert. Instead, since I have close to twenty thousand people read my blog, I wanted to share the insights because many of us live in the mentality of  'it could not happen to me'. In this case it did happen to me - and I would love for something positive to come from it. If this can save a life... then the blog was worth it.

LINK TO ALL AUDIO BOOKS BY RUBY ALLURE:

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If

Money, Health and Wellbeing

Money, Health and Wellbeing.

 

Who would have thought that money, a metal lump, can actually make you sick? Can you imagine worrying over a shell, how many shells you have and whether you will survive without those shells? You then dedicate the hours of your life accumulating shells and work yourself into the ground to survive. Over time you accumulate a mass of shells so that you can feel as though you have more shells than others because the more shells you have then the more important you are. What makes the illusion worse is that your peers view you in esteem according to how many shells you have. In fact if you have over a million shells your sense of power enables you to be viewed as something special, someone important. Then one day someone comes along and takes away your shells. Suddenly you are worth nothing in the shell view of the world. You then descend into depression because your life has collapsed because you have no shells. Your partner leaves you because you are shell-less and goes for someone who has plenty of shells to support their way of living. You realise he or she was actually a ‘Shell-digger’.

 

When you replace money with shells you become very aware how ridiculous attachment to money really is and how we define ourselves through it. Yet money is a reality we have to deal with. What’s more, money is one of the biggest causes of stress, anxiety and worry. If you consider the fact that these three negative states affect your immune system then why would you be surprised that money can directly affect your health?

 

About twelve years ago I was transitioning from working on cruise ships and returning to land to study my Master’s Degree. The transition resulted in me worrying about how I was going to survive financially - and boom – my lower back went. My fear that I would not be able support myself got me right at the base of my spine. It was so bad that I could not walk for two days and during the time I was in laying on my back I noticed the churn of thoughts about money streaming through my mind. Was it any wonder that this mental pattern had migrated to the base of my spine?

 

It was during a random conversation that someone told me that the lower back ‘going’ was a classic sign of financial worry. Me being as analytical as I am, thought ‘rubbish’. Yet the more I looked into it then the more I realised that during times in my life where I was financially worried then my back would go. It seemed that this was more common that I realised. Such a revelation made me realise that people’s bodies responded to their thoughts. It was then that I discovered somatic psychology and the relation between thoughts and illness.

 

Later on in my career I became a business analyst and worked trending financial patterns. At the same time I watched colleagues go through different wealth related phases. I noticed when they were under financial strain a number of them developed back issues. When they wanted to avoid money issues they developed stiff necks. Others got stomach aches when large bills came in. The most simple of all was when they had been worrying about finances they developed colds. Obviously there are far more factors involved yet money seemed to be a trigger for many of their health issues.

 

One of the main causes of relationship break-ups is down to money. With this in mind is there anything we can do to improve our wealth health?

Here are a few questions I asked myself to enable movement beyond the financial flus:

Am I willing to be completely responsible for my finances?

Have you ever looked at how you view money and how much of your money is you?

How can you separate your identity from how much money you have?

How can you demonstrate your self-worth without using money?

If you have debt why do you maintain it?

If you have debt what do you need to do to pay it off?

How can the action of paying off debt be stress free? Note: a tip is to automate the pay off on your pay day so you the debt gets paid off without you having the temptation to touch the money.

What if money was simply an object or a tool?

What thoughts do I have about money?

How do my thoughts change when I start feeling stressed about money?

Where do I feel this in my body?

Have there been times in my life when I have become ill due to financial worry? Where did that turn up in my body?

 

Once one becomes aware of the patterns then one can take action. I read numerous books on finance and money management: The Richest Man in Babylon, Think and Grow Rich, The Rules of Wealth and The 4 hour Working Week. These were excellent books and provided plenty of information on how to make and manage money. Yet I had not fixed the actual issue – my attitude to money.  Nor had I looked at the health aspect. So a few more books later: You can heal your life, healing body healing mind and numerous other somatic psychology books, I realised that the body, the mind and our monetary situations were all linked.

 

 

 

I needed to understand how money made me feel and what emotions I experienced. So there I am feeling guilt when I go into an overdraft. I then felt angry when I received a huge bill. I felt levels of excitement at purchasing a new dress. I am sure you don’t need to my emotions about buying new underwear. The emotional money diary is revealing especially when you write down how you feel, the thoughts and why you need to buy something.

So I may as well share this with you – I realised that quite often that spending money compensated for boredom and made me feel free. After I had bought an object (that I did not really need) I would then descend into a cycle of guilt. After a few weeks patterns emerge and you will see what you are really up to. Through the money diary you may well identify beliefs such as ‘money must make me miserable.’ ‘I will never have enough money’. It is worth writing these beliefs down and affirming the opposite. This can make you feel quite queasy when you really hit an in-depth belief. When you do an affirmation over such an issue do it until you either feel free of the belief or you make a large exhale. Once you are clear of old beliefs then it is time to take action. Learn how to manage money, monitor your thoughts and shift them from worry to positives. It is amazing how the development of self-awareness relaxes you. The more relaxed you are then the less likely you are to become ill due to money.  

 

I hope the above inspires you. If you have any examples of how you shifted attitudes to money then please share in the commentsJ

 

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LABYRINTHINE Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B011LX0WUW

A SHORT COURSE IN CREATIVE WRITING Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B012OV8JPU