Urban Guru your inspired guide to urban living

If you’re alive and if you’ve ever taken a moment to think about the big questions, then you’ll probably admit that life is a little bit crazy.
After years of pondering this and other important questions, i’ve had one or two fairly cheesy but profound realisations:

Each and everyone of us has to activate a feeling of love within us and in every moment in life we are given new and different opportunities to love.

To love the people in our lives, including ourselves, to love the beings in our lives, to love the stuff in our lives and to love our lives.

The kind of love that I’m talking about isn’t theoretical or a general ‘isn’t everybody lovely’ fluffy feeling. What I’m referring to is a real, deep love, that is the kind of love we have for a child, or a sibling or a parent or a spouse.

Obviously all of those types of love are slightly different, but the feeling, the feeling of love is the same. I’m suggesting that we foster and nurture that feeling of love within ourselves and that we actively allow that energy to flow to the world and people around us.

Thus we transform ourselves and we transform the world.

In a place were there is love all are happy and at peace.

“Since I started to lose weight a year ago, my target has been the holiday I took in July. Now that’s over, I’m finding it difficult to stay motivated. How can I regain my diet momentum?”

There are two answers: 1. the quick fix and 2. the real deal.

Quick fix.

Create another deadline around Christmas where you’ll be scrutinised, half naked, in front of strangers. Perhaps volunteering to model naked for your local art college? Book it into your diary now and start getting really nervous, the fear itself will burn calories!

Real Deal.

If you’re looking for a longer-term transformation then let’s look at this a little deeper.

When it comes to being motivated about anything the question we need to ask is; Who am I doing it for?

Am I dieting for myself or so that people on holiday don’t think I’m fat?

If it’s the latter, the real motivation is both external and negative; the fear of what other people might think about you. The imagined fear of being judged for having a bit of cellulite or a tummy, being talked about by skinny people with nothing else to do, mind you, they’d be talking about you whatever you looked like.

And it’s difficult to keep up this type of negative and externally stimulated motivation, especially when you’re holiday has come to an end.

My suggestion is to find internal and positive reasons for why you want to stay slim, eat healthily and exercise.

Do it for yourself, because you deserve to feel good, because deserve to look amazing, because you love yourself and your life. Having a sexy and healthy body is good for you; it might even help you to feel gorgeous on the inside!

My mum’s doctor has told her she needs to lose at least 3st, but when it comes to diets, she doesn’t stay motivated. I’m worried for her health - how can I encourage her to take action?

–

Trying to motivate someone else is a difficult thing, I’ve got lots of experience doing that, and the old saying is still true, “You can lead the horse to water, but you can’t make it drink”. This is especially true for parents, who have spent many years of their life telling you, what you should and should not be doing. Ultimately it’s her life and no amount of pushing is going to work long-term.

What I would suggest (and I know it might sound a little ‘left field’) is spend a little each day thinking about her. Imagine her 3st lighter, imagine her happier and fitter, focus on how much you love her and how much she loves you. You see, I believe, that a little bit of real heart-felt love, has a really powerful effect to change and transform the people that we love.

Maybe it’s because of some way-out spiritual connection we have with them, or maybe it’s because, if you spend time feeling real love (and acceptance) for your mum, she’ll see it and feel it in the little things you do and say.

And without any nagging or ‘motivational’ bullying, she will start to feel the love that you have for her, in her own heart, and will make the changes she needs to make, because she feels loved and because she wants to. And also because she’s got a fantastic daughter who loves her and who she wants to be around for, for as long as possible.

I’d also suggest that if she wants to and has some spare cash, she signs up for the Soulmate Lifestyle makeover programme, which makes dieting and loosing weight a no-brainer. See www.soulmatelifestyle.com for more info.

Top five ways to tell your partner is angry:

1, Not talking.
2, Avoiding eye contact.
3, Avoiding touching you.
4, Slamming doors.
5, Doing things to upset you or provoke an emotional response from you.

But once you have noticed an icy stare, what can you do to smooth things over? Max says that solutions to the problem are pretty simple, but require you to swallow your pride.

Here as his top five tips:

1, Apologise.
2, Let go of your own ego and back down.
3, Remember that the relationship is bigger than the thing you are arguing about.
4, Offer to talk about what you have done wrong.
5, Don’t buy gifts… your partner may think you don’t understand their anger.

________________________

Originally on Smooth Radio Online 

Stop running Way From Yourself !

I’ve always been puzzled by young, intelligent, movers and shakers in the Jewish community upping and moving to Israel, it seems so dualistic, and short sighted.

The primary motive they cite is that they don’t feel comfortable in the Diaspora and that they feel really Jewish in the Land of Israel even if they don’t keep any of the religious laws etc… What’s up with that?

Surely if you were more comfortable with your own identity why would you need to move to a country with millions of other people just like you? If your cultural identity is so important, why don’t you do something about it here and now? Why do you think that nationalism or in deed a ‘Holy land’ – where you can be yourself is really going to solve your deep problems?

The question isn’t just about Jews and Israel, its about all of us, why do we think that over there, in some distant future things are going to be ok, if I only had this or that, that then

I’d be happy? If I lived in a big house, or a small house, drove this car, or had that job, money, if I only had a boyfriend of girlfriend, a cat or a baby then all my troubles would be over?

In the messianic era the kabbalists teach us that the Holiness of the Holy of Holies will spread to the whole of the temple mount, that the Holiness of the Temple will encompass the Whole of Jerusalem, the Holiness of Jerusalem will spread to the entire biblical land of Israel and the Holiness of the Holy Land will spread throughout the entire world.

The Whole world will become as Holy as the Holy land.

Some great Kabbalists go further – they claim that the holiness of the Holy of Holies will in fact be accessible to each and every individual that the land we are standing on might be ‘Israel’ but we are in deed the Holy of Holies.

What i’m saying is that, happiness is not found outside of yourself. If you push off, happiness and bliss to some future time, you are destined always to be unhappy and miserable.

Also that the Messianic Era is here and now, it is a state of mind a state of enlightened being, one that is accessible now.

That running towards a better future, doesn’t always work, ‘progress’ is sometimes fuelled by stupidity, greed and emptiness.

Real spiritual, and personal progress comes from a place of contentment, happiness and a desire to spread that around.

Can you see the difference?

I am a pissed off peaceful person, I don’t think that I can have a more honest reaction or approach to the nature of being human and particularly being Jewish in this day. I have a pure soul, I was a baby, and am still in many way, naive and confused about what exactly this experience, that everyone seemed to have so comfortable eased them selves into, called life, I found so utterly alien.

I still look at my hand, move my fingers and really wonder, what the hell, how can I do that? And what a weird trip to be in the world, to be alive, my underlying voice, is one of wonder, acceptance and confusion. I am always willing to say I’m wrong, to listen, to hear. I realise that I alone can never have all the answers, that truth, whatever that is, is something that is a collective reality. ‘An accurate description of what is.’ I feel in someway passive to this experience, it’s almost as if I’m just along for the ride, looking as a child, in a perpetual state of not knowing. Whatever it is I do know is just a small piece of the whole, and probably corrupted and misinterpreted by my own personal perception and crippling life experiences, that must undeniably filter and colour my view of what is.

Where have I been? in my search for my self, in search of some sense, trying to make sense, of this world, make sense of my life and experience of what is.

From early on I was attracted to ideas that tried to make sense of the whole thing, being Jewish, I liked to explore Judaism’s more mystical teachings, and my pure an holy soul, with honest and truthful yearning, lusted after a life that made sense, a life full of meaning, a life that had answers.

And for a moment or two I did find peace, or something similar to peace, being so preoccupied with doing what God wants, that I didn’t have a moment to think about anything, that I momentarily lost, that special twinkle in my eye, that wonder why. I lost myself in the undercover of God’s world, killing myself to be, this pure and pious Jew, to rebecome, a myth of a soul transcendent, embodied.

I dissolved myself in the rich velvet, of smothering, intoxicating Jewish mysticism. Unable to breathe, for dusty books, of messianic longing, entangled in my souls desire for a global utopia, to become the servant of Moshiach Consciousness. To mend this broken world, shattered shards of God’s divine light, redeemed and whole.

But as I learnt and internalised as best I could, the teaching of the Messiah Himself, The New Torah, my body and mind lifted themselves up from where they thought they had been. From this new place I could see much further, had begun to taste the future. He had glimpsed me a taste of truly forbidden fruits, of ideas so tempting, so utterly dangerous that the very fabric of everything I even thought I may have known, seemed to unravel itself at the seams.

He taught me things that I dared not utter, things and signs that blinded me, with its dark light. A whirlpool of maddening darkness, so utterly dark that it shimmered and shone.

Madness, everyone thinks I must be mad, to call the Rebbe a heretic, because the Rebbe is a righteous man, a Ztadik, and I just a mad, sad and stupid idiot – who, by my own admission, doesn’t know anything.

So my Rebbe is a smiling, Cheshire cat, Buddha-like Jewish heretic, he is my Rebbe, not anyone else’s, but mine. They say the Rebbe is a mirror and you see who you really are, call the Rebbe whatever you want, he is you.
But nonetheless, he showed me things that I, on my own could have never seen or even imagined.

It has been a long journey, so far close to fifteen years of trying to make sense of what the Rebbe said, what he meant, and how and who I am supposed to be and do with it.

I’m not intolerant, just slightly impatient, some things are so clear to me that I get frustrated when otherwise intelligent people show an absolute stupidity towards things.

Obviously every lunatic fanatic thinks that they are right, they are correct, that what they believe is so simple and so utterly obvious, and I’m probably no different.

They say that the Torah of Moses is Hevel (Breath/Nothing/Vanity) compared to the Torah of Moshiach. This I know from personal experience is true.

So much more to say, some other time…

We are sleeping giants,

Formed from dust by the great sky,

Our souls are more powerful than angels,

Our bodies shine brighter than the sun,

Our dreams now our destiny!

Every moment we’re born new!

Children with innocent eyes, hearts, minds wide open, lives of unlimited possibilities.

It’s our choice to be the same as before or to change.

Q. For someone who has been told all their life by their family or peers that they won’t achieve their aims, how can they dispose of negative beliefs? Do they need counselling?

A. It really depends on the individual, it depends on their aims and goals and it depends on how much they believe the peer pressure propaganda.

The three step way to get rid of these negative beliefs are; 1. Realise that the negative lessons you’ve have learnt can be unlearnt and new more accurate and supporting beliefs can replace them. 2. The opinion of the people that fed you this barrage of negativity was probably inaccurate and was definitely unhelpful. 3. Surround yourself with more positive people and feed yourself positive information.

Q. What are the reasons why people commonly lack self-esteem?

A. As babies and young children, we don’t lack self-esteem, it is beaten out of us by our well-meaning parents, teachers and peers. Being confident and being comfortable being yourself completely is, in my opinion, everyone’s natural state, it’s just that we are taught how not to be.
It starts early, when parents say, ‘No! Stop! Don’t do that! They may start off, warning children about sticking their tongues in plug sockets, but within a few years, it becomes more subtle: “Don’t wear that it’ll make you look fat”, or “You could do better, if you only applied yourself… worked hard… stopped answering back… just behaved yourself… listened to the teacher… stopped fidgeting… started paying attention… stopped talking… didn’t play with Tommy … stopped messing around… ate your Brussels Sprouts  … paid more attention in Algebra … worked harder…” You get the picture? All of which restrict us from feeling that we are allowed to be ourselves completely.

Q. Are there any courses available that can improve self-esteem?

A. Yes, from the deeply psychological Hoffman Quadrinity Process, to an Anthony Robbins weekend Empowerment Course. There are Life Coaches that specifically focus on improving confidence and self-esteem. We do a lot of confidence coaching as part of our work at Soulmate Lifestyle Consultancy, helping people to change the way they view their bodies and how they see themselves in the world. So there is help out there, if you know where to look.

Q. If a person is feeling nervous before an interview or important  meeting, what can they do to calm their nerves beforehand?

A. It seems that a lot of slow, deep and rhythmical breathing helps. Learning to be present, stop your mind wondering off into some horrific nightmare scenario of the future (i.e the worse case scenario) or of the past (all the times you messed up or what could have been).

If you are going to imagine the interview, focus in stead on the best case scenario, imagine the meeting going really well, imagine them offering the job to your there and then.

In short:

1.    Have a positive future plan
2.    Breathe, stay calm and focused and keep your awareness in the present moment.

Q. Can a person with low self-esteem fake self-confidence, even if they don’t feel it?

A. Of course people can fake self-confidence, people do it all the time, but it usually comes across as arrogance, cockiness or bravado, and that’s because it’s not a natural worked-out self confidence, it’s forced, it’s pretence. But the good thing about faking it is that in reality people that don’t know you, don’t know that you lake confidence and you can be whoever you want to be and who knows this person you’re pretending to be might even help you become more confident in reality. However, the ‘fake it till you make it’ model only works in the short term. Ultimately you’ve got to start to believe your own hype and work out all the real stuff that is stopping you from just allowing yourself to be yourself completely without any apologies.

Q. If you lack self-esteem, how can you improve it?

A. It’s all about focus, until now you’ve been signed up to your own lousy low self esteem, confidence bruising, internal mind-washing programme, where you constantly play messages to yourself like:
“You’re such an idiot! I’m soooo stupid! I hate her! My bum IS fat! I look awful! I’ll never make it! I can’t do that! Nobody loves me! I’m scared of making a fool of myself! I hate my job! A glass of wine will make it better! I’m not good enough!” Etc…

The first thing to do is start to notice when you say this type of stuff to yourself. Secondly, try saying something kind, encouraging or even positively loving to yourself, like: “I’m good at lots of things! I’m intelligent and attractive! There are many people in my life that love me! I’m a good person! I love being alive! My bum is sexy! I can achieve anything I set my mind to!

But more effective that positive self-talk, is changing the way you view yourself and the world. If you suffer from a lack of confidence and low self-esteem, somewhere along the line you got a very clear message from Life, and that was; ‘It’s not safe for me to be me’.
If you’re going to move forwards towards greater confidence, start to change the fundamental beliefs you have about yourself and the world. Start to TRUST yourself and trust that life loves you and supports you. And ultimately, that the world wants you to succeed and become who you’re meant to be, yourself without compromise.

Q. What are your top five tips for improving self-esteem?

A.

1. Learn to trust, love and accept yourself
2. Make your internal dialogue more positive
3. Have a plan but stay present
4. Surround yourself with positive people
5. Find yourself a Life Coach or Counsellor that specialises in Confidence and self-esteem building

So you’ve just got to find out what’s going on in the world, you’ve got to know the latest news, current affairs, the celebrity gossip, the weather, you’ve got to know about what’s going on locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.

You’ve got to feed your hunger for information, to quickly absorb the exact information from the news source that reflects your concerns, hopes and aspirations.

So some people read the broadsheets, others the tabloids, listen to the radio, watch the television, download the lasted news feed to their phone, check out the news on their favourite news website. Then not only do we know what’s going on in the world, we’ve also got something to talk about to our friends and associates during the day. Not only is it important to get this information as often as possible but we also need updates about developing stories. So the news media saturates ours lives with information, views and oppinion.

But wait just a minuet, have you ever stopped to think about the impact of this information on your general quality of life?

Quality of Life? What has me reading the news got to do with my quality of life? you might ask?

My quality of life is influenced but my income, by the area I live in, by the job that I have, by my health, my wealth, my primary relationship, by lots of other economic factors that I have little control over.
And all of this may be true, but you’ve missed out one major factor which is the most important, influential and obvious thing which has the most impact on our everyday quality of life, and that is our attitude, perception and focus.

Now as if life in the fast lane wasn’t stressful enough you go and fill you mind with even more negative, stress inducing new information that has very little actual relevance to you day to day running of your life.
Imagine just for a second that the information you got the news media every hour during the day, was really positive and inspiring stuff?

But it’s not, it’s all very negative, emotionally grabbing, worrying, powerful information that tells you generally that; the world is going to the dogs and that locally based international terrorists are about to tax you and brake into your house with knives, kill you and trigger global warming / economic meltdown armogedan and there’s nothing you can do about it.

And if you’re lucky enough not to read or hear about that kind of stuff, the more intelligent media opinions and commentary are all geared and slanted towards being critical, deriding and very cynical and they do this in a way that seems to be an adequate replacement for humour!?!!

OK so I’ve complained enough about the news, but what I am saying? What is my solution to this cascade of negativity that I believe is ruining your quality of life?

It’s a simple two step process:

1. Stop! - Avoid negativity

2. Be positive! - Fill your life with goodness!

Just imagine that you replaced all that millions of bits of negative information with millions of bits of inspiring, wise, positive, happy, hopeful, optimistic, life-affirming information, every day morning and evening, every hour on the hour, on the radio, tv, phone and computer?!!

Just imagine the impact on the real quality of your life of feeding yourself huge amounts of positively saturated information, of filling your mind with happy and inspiring thoughts about how lucky you are and how your life is fantastic and getting even better!?

Do it today! Choose and filter the information that you consume, fill your life with good news, with ideas that inspire you, talk about amazing stuff, about happy stuff, about good stuff.

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Stress at work has a real negative effect on your long-term health and wellbeing, pumping adrenalin around your body, causing increased blood pressure, shutting down your digestive system and stopping you’re higher brain function from functioning.

Stress was our ancestors’ way of staying alive, they needed it to fight or run from dangerous situations, nowadays we mistakenly see our boss or upcoming deadline, as the sabre-toothed tiger.

The answer is to recognise that is your perception of what is, or is not stressful, which triggers your response. Simply make a conscious choice to see your job not as a matter of life or death, but for what it is, just a job.

Blessings are metered by OUR ability to receive, not the Universes ability to give. It’s almost like, the Universe would like to give us everything but it is us that says no.

In some sense, as a friend suggested, sometimes it’s our ‘personality’ which gets in the way of blessings. And that sometimes we need to let go of our selves, put our sense of ‘Self’ to one side to simply allow God’s blessings into our lives.

Some say that we have to make a “vessel” a way and a path, for the Universe to bless us. But I believe, more important than the creation of a mere ‘vessel’ or conduit of divine blessing, we ourselves, must become spiritually able and willing to receive blessing into our hearts and into our lives.

The questions we are forced to ask are; are we open enough, receptive enough, willing enough to allow the divine to give us everything and more? Are we ready to accept bliss into our every moment of our lives?!!!?

Say to yourself; “I’m sorry for having previously been a barrier to receiving blessings, I forgive you for the past, I now allow you to accept all blessings into your heart with joy and love. I allow the source of all blessings to flow through me, so that peace is my very being and the abundance of blessing my inheritance!”

Escape from the city, and from the humdrum and stresses of everyday life…

Sometimes we all need to escape from the din of city living, step outside of our everyday selves and reassess the way we live, to help us gain new and different perspective on our lives.

Our Weekend ‘Shabbaton’ Urban Guru Retreat is the perfect time and place to do this as it’s entirely dedicated to your personal spiritual growth and development. It is an ideal chance to breathe and focus on becoming more relaxed, spiritualy centred and balanced. It is an opportunity to reassess your life, discover your souls path, and a chance to focus on cultivating your own happiness, inner joy and peace of mind. So when you do return to your life you can begin to live it on a higher plane, were you can be more focussed, calm, and alive.

Urban Guru Retreats, usually take place over a weekend (or Shabbaton) Friday - Sunday, in a converted farm near Buxton in the Peak Park UK. They are very laid back and relaxing, the weekend is a mixture of lectures and workshops, focusing on wide variety of themes.

This included workshops in various forms of Kabbalistic meditation, from the early Merkvah school - to modern day forms of Hassidic consciousness expanding techniques.

The themes of the lectures vary - and they can focus on that weeks Torah reading - although not always so. We try to keep some semblance of a traditional Shabath from Friday to Saturday night although we are not dogmatic about it.

As participants are asked to refrain from using there mobile phones throughout their time at the retreat etc…There are group activities and ‘prayer’ workshops, as well as one on one learning and mentoring.

All the activities are completely voluntary… if someone doesn’t wish to participate and even just spend the entire weekend in their room that’s fine - if that is what they need to do.

The food is Kosher* and Vegetarian and were possible locally produced and/or organic. It is generally for small groups with a maximum of 12 people.

One of the first and most important steps on the path to personal enlightenment or as I like to say creating a personal utopia, is becoming free of emotional blockages.

The reason why I’d suggest that this is the most important of journeys is that, in order to experience any idea, any profound and life altering notion or concept your heart must be open to feeling and experiencing whatever idea as being real.

Your mind and heart are like two wings of a bird, each of them needs to be functioning well and working together in order to help you fly upwards, towards those illustrious spiritual heights.

So getting to it, this I what you need to do:

Because we’ve all been hurt one way or other over the years, write a list of people that you may have unfinished emotional business with.

Then think about each of them and write them a letter, telling them exactly what happened from your perspective and exactly how you feel. It may not be a lovely letter but it has to be honest.

Of course you’re not meant to send the letter, but rather take each one put it in an envelope and in your minds eye imagine yourself putting the address on it, sticking a stamp on and putting it in the post.

I would recommend that you shred the actual letter and put the shredding in the recycling, as you do so say to yourself, I’m letting this go, I’m allowing the Universe to take care of this business, I’m moving on with my life, My heart is freer. Do this for each letter until you have no more unresolved emotional business to deal with. Obviously this could take a while.

Once you’ve done that, think about each person you’ve written your letter to and forgive them, even pray for them, ask that they be granted peace. Obviously this could take a while (especially if you’ve not really done the letter writing stuff all that convincingly).

Let people know what you feel! Once you’ve done all that emotional healing, you might find that you feel much more alive, more able to express yourself. You might even find that you don’t let the same situations happen again, you’ll deal with them before they become things that you might one day regret.
So, do express your feelings, tell people what you feel, be in touch with your feelings, and allow yourself to be more of an emotional person.

Whatever happens you’ll become a richer and more whole person, even if it does get you into some short-term trouble, with people that can’t deal with emotions.

Remember, to be kind to yourself and others, life is a lesson in love and compassion, for yourself, the people in your life and the entire world.