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!

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?

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

The Secrets of Bilateral Seduction

In the normal course of events if you fancy someone of the opposite sex, or the same sex for that matter, you’re less likely to be yourself and act normally. Yet this abnormal behaviour on your part is precisely what is most likely to put the other person off.

You see that in the slip moment when you see that attractive person across the room there are a million bits of information running around your head and before you’ve even blinked you’ve put yourself in our out of their league.

You see, when you see someone that you find attractive, you subconsciously rate him or her and then also rate yourself. You normally give them a higher rating than yourself; you might give them a 9/10 and give yourself a 6/10.

And this is where the problem lies; if you fancy them and don’t rate yourself very highly, you’re likely to behave in a way that is either slightly desperate or a little bit shy.

Slightly Desperate: could mean that you use corny chat up lines, or beg them to let you buy them a drink, or are just a little creepy or down right in their face and pushy.

Shy: means that you don’t even get around to opening your mouth to say hello.

Now Slightly Desperate is marginally better than Shy, because you’ve jumped over that gap between you and the person you fancy and you’ve made some-kind of attempt at communicating.

But Bilateral Seduction approaches the situation completely differently.

The problem starts at the very beginning, you rate yourself in comparison to other people and most importantly to the person you fancy.

And the point is that if you rate the other person significantly above yourself then you’re more likely to act stupid and stop just being your normal and fantastic self.

So what I’m suggesting is this, learn to rate yourself higher.

That is you first need to find yourself attractive, to become attractive and sexy in your own estimation.

Now obviously there is a difference between arrogance and confidence but it is a subtle although profound one. But not something we need to talk about at this point.

If you increase your own feelings of attractiveness you change the balance of power, between you and the person that you fancy. Instead of you chasing after them in a desperate and slightly embarrassing series of self-fladulating Mr Bean impressions, you become the seductive Casanova, passionate, interesting, exciting and really fanciable person that the other person wants to get to know (in the biblical sense of course).

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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Confidence, for people who haven’t been working out - still; feel great even though you’re not in the greatest of shape.

So you haven’t been working out, you’ve not been eating much more healthily in the run up to that all important summer ‘social catwalk’ by the pool, you haven’t got around to doing what you kept on promising yourself you’d do, but now it’s probably all too late and there’s not much point trying to kid yourself that by drinking a diet-Coke is going to make any difference what-so-ever to your now ever so slightly bulging belly. So what are you going to do?

Breathe in, and think and feel gorgeous! No seriously, loathing your body isn’t going to do you any justice, it’s not going to help you feel sexy and it’s not going to help you find any summer romance. The Answer is to embrace you booty! Take possession of your whole body and accept it as it is, right now! Say to yourself, I am gorgeous and sexy just as I am.

It’s grey and rainy most of the year round in the UK, so make a point of capturing a little bit of holiday sun and inspiration to carry with you throughout the year. If you do get a chance to go on holiday, make a point of creating a few moments of blissful calm, tranquillity and inspiration, so whether it’s by the pool or walking down a country lane, on standing on top of a mountain, take breathe deeply and turn on your minds video recorder.

Crystallise the experience in your mind and body, be aware of all of your senses, the feeling of the sun warming your face, the cool breeze, the view, the smell, remember this moment and save it to your inner hard-drive, by holding your thumb and forefinger together, so that when you’re waiting for a busy in the cold and bitter rain, you can automatically bring back that stunning summer experience and feel the sunshine on the inside. It may not stop the rain from falling but it might just take the edge off.

Work related stress is wearing you down and killing you slowly and it seems that no amount of deep breathing and positive visualisations seem to make it better?

The Urban Guru is here to help:

It’s the simple problem of your own mental perception and your bodies natural fight or flight response. You mistakenly see your boss or upcoming deadline, presentation or deal as the prehistoric monster with VERY BIG TEETH that’s going to eat you! And because you’re telling yourself it’s a real problem your body reacts with it’s fight or flight response.

It’s your own fear, which creates the stress; that pumps adrenalin around your body and causes increased blood pressure and shuts down your digestive system and stops you’re higher brain function from functioning.

So just STOP! Stop prostituting yourself to the corporate monster, let go of your imaginary fear and learn to say “No!” Because you’re worth more than whatever it is they’re paying you in ‘overtime’.

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!”

Most of us might plan a few weeks in advance, we might even book our summer holidays in at the beginning of the year, but very few people actually make a plan for their life.

Where would I like to be in five or ten years time? How do I want to be? What kind of life do I want to live? Where? With whom? What kind of job or pastime do I want to be doing and enjoying?

And this is one of the many Life Coaching tools – the five year plan.

But before you go off, drawing up your plan and running off making big changes in your life, stop for a moment.

Lets take a step back and think about the destination again.

Where are you going? Let’s take a few moments to really think about where you want your life to go.

A few very useful question I ask people are;

1. How would you feel if you won the lottery?
2. What would you do with the money?
3. How does it change your life?
4. After some years of spending and living the hi life – what do you do?
5. Can you imagine your future life in detail?
6. How does it feel?
7. How can you do that now?
8. How can you move forward towards your current life goals?

You see you really need to figure out where you want to be heading BEFORE you start running away in that general direction.

But now that you’ve got a slightly better idea, we can start planning!

It doesn’t have to be a very detail plan, just a sketch, an outline, I find it works best if you plan backwards.

Year 5 -

Year 4 -

Year 3 -

Year 2 -

Year 1 -

Now you can begin to run towards your future - even though this plan may change, at least you’ve now got a much clearer idea and vision of where you are going.

Good luck!

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.

I got chatting to the ex-nun that lives next door (as you do) about the benefits of going to confession. And although I’m not Catholic by any stretch of the cosmic canvas (not even in previous incarnations it seems) I was still attracted to the idea of coming clean about who you really are, exposing your darkest and deepest thoughts and issues, to someone that isn’t gonna tell your mum or dad, or broadcast it on national TV.

That’s probably why counselling and psychotherapy was invented, to give us non-Catholics a little bit of a chance of getting into heaven, or at least sorting our own shite out before we die?

And it got me thinking about how we all see ourselves, am I a sinner or am I righteous?

I know that for the most part, most people think that they are right, correct and that everything they do, everything that we do is justified.

However, on a deeper level many people don’t seem to be truly happy, deep down they don’t feel righteous, but probably consider themselves bad, wrong, stupid, dumb, fat, ugly, sinners.

Not that everyone has a Catholic soul and should feel like a big bad sinner, but from a more humanistic perspective each of us is in some way guilty of at least one sin, the sin of not truly fulfilling our innate divine potential. We are guilty of not living our dreams, of not trusting life, of ultimately letting ourselves down.

The bible says that Noah, (the guy with the boat and the animals, “2 by 2”) was ‘righteous in his own generation’, (cite) which seems to imply that his ‘righteousness’ was a ‘relative’ rather than an ‘absolute’, righteous-dudeness.

Which leads me to this; most people’s conscious mind, for the most part, thinks they’re right and justified. Their unconscious mind however knows the truth.

Heartfelt confession or being truly honest with yourself brings the two minds together, the unconscious mind teaches the conscious mind what the true situation is.

As my spiritual teacher once wrote, ‘the heart is the portal to the transcendent’ it is through our heart, that we are able to be honest, to marry our deepest part of ourselves with our everyday state of mind.

And it is in that union that we learn that, if we listened more closely to our true inner voice, we would make better choices in our lives, we would become righteous in the deepest resources of our very being.

So that unlike Noah we can strive to become more than just righteous in comparison to the generation, culture and society we live in, that is ‘righteous in his generation’ but on some much more profound and substantial level that we actually become beautiful through and through.

It is my wish that this inner beauty and righteousness become manifest within you, because it is who you are already righteous and beautiful, but nobody told you.

In truth each of us are already truly enlightened. Call it buddha, moshiach, God or whatever you like. Only when you or I completely surrender to our divine nature do we begin to live a life that fulfills all of our potential.

what does that even mean?

I’ve got an idea about what I mean, what place that this stuff comes from.

We all have ideas and beliefs about ourselvles and who we think we really are. Most people have bought into the theory of evolution and just think that they are little furry monkeys on a tinny spinning planet in some distant backwater of the milky way.

But that is just an idea, which trys to make sense of this world we live in, to give us some wider perspective on the human condition.

But what i’m suggesting is that by limmiting ourselves to a purely mechanistic, darwinian worldview, we limit our potential for growth , for developemnt and for discovering the Unknown within us, everyone and the entire world.

What’s the point of discovering the Unknown within us? Call it buddha, moshiach, God or whatever you like.

- to help you decome a better, happier and more inspired, responsive, gentle, caring, awesome furry monkies of course.

Life can sometimes present us with lots of different challenges, they are of course, all there to help us grow and become deeper and better people because of them.

But I believe that it is our resistance to, what is, to the unfolding of life, the universe and everything, to the day-to-day stuff that happens in our life, it is that friction which ultimately wears us down.

I don’t mean always being an easy pushover on every occasion, because indeed, sometimes Life wants us to rise to the challenge, speak up, act and react, out of pure righteous indignation.

But often it is the less important elements of life that we get caught up with, the daily stresses that gently grinds us down until we fall to pieces.

It is these daily recurrent events, stresses, feelings and thoughts that I’m suggesting we stop and let go of.

I believe, not based on too much fuzzy new-age science, but from watching myself, that it is our resistance to life, the everyday resistance, our feelings of dislike, being upset about whatever it may be that actually ages us, both emotionally and physically.

So if and when you notice yourself becoming tense, or feeling even the slightest bit cross, let it go! Stop resisting, just relax, and allow whatever is, to be.

What does that mean?

It means that when you notice yourself resisting life, before you even make yourself ill, stressed or upset, just let it go.

Learn to recognise that your default mode is one of tranquillity and warm quiet inner stillness and peace.

Everything that moves your attention away from that sense of calm is a distraction; it is a form of mild idolatry.

Your task then is to focus your attention on that river of peace that runs through your veins.

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.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the rhetoric and sentimentality of the current fashionable good cause, whether it’s recycling, CO2 emissions, feeding the starving in Africa or eating more fruit and veg. But the real question is, even if you are a dedicated bandwagon devotee; does that make you a significantly better person?

Haven’t you ever noticed, that, for all their clear skin, the staff in your local Health Food Shop or Environmentally Super Deli seem absolutely miserable and struggle to smile? Don’t you sometimes leave thinking, why do they want to save the world when they’re so miserable? And it’s not just because you’ve driven up in your shinny new car and are wearing a suit. That’s not the reason why they look like they’ve been sucking organic lemons, No!

Their faces seem to say ‘Oh bugger! The end of the world is nigh! Anyone for lentils?’

On reflection, they don’t really care about the world as much as they profess, just as nobody really cares if starving people in Africa know whether it’s Christmas or not.

We love the sentimentality of it, the feeling of being right, doing good when everyone else is wrong and some people just like being miserable.

The proof is, that, if we really loved and cared for the world, then we would start to love and care for the small Universe we inhabit, which we each called ‘My Life’.

So if you want to save the world, start loving and looking after yourself. Discover deep and meaningful happiness, spend time finding balance and actively feel and express real love for your family and friends and all the people in your life!

When you live in balance and love your self, you won’t need slogans or campaigns, you’ll instinctively look after and cherish your environment, the people in your community, your city, county, region, country and in fact the whole world.

Simply choose to live the life you love, and love the life you live.

Stop! Just wait a moment, there is a little lie that you believe; that you are somehow completely separate from the universe, from the whole. That you are just a little furry monkey trying desperately to hold on to this tiny spinning planet, in some forgotten Wild West Corral at the edge of this dusty galaxy, but that’s not the case.

You are actually an integral part of a responsive and intelligent, feeling universe. You are made of the very same substance as the Big Bang and the very same stuff as whatever preceded Space and Time. You are a little bit of God! (I’m a Guru I’m allowed to say that).

The problem is that you believe that the Gold/God/Wealth and Happiness are found ‘Out There’ in those them there hills, but the truth of the matter is that the source of all of the wealth and bliss in your life is not found outside of yourself, but deeply within.

If you are to discover and claim the material wealth in the world outside of you, you must first discover the mountains of ‘gold’ that you already contain.

You must claim wealth, prosperity and spiritual happiness as your birthright and become a gold-digger in the mines of your heart, and uncover the infinite that you have within you.

If you intend it with all of your internal power, if you begin to imagine it, to feel it, then it must come into being. Even if this means that your cosmic soul has to travel back in time, to the beginning of the Universe and form the very gold that you are about to find in the hills and mountains of the open market.

It is you and your intention, your divine will to manifest your infinite potential in any way you choose. You are a creator of the life you are living; you manifest and create wealth and success in your life.

You are the goose that lays the golden eggs!

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This was first published in the Sep 2007 edition of EN Magazine

I’m not sure if I’ve told you but the ‘Urban Guru’ is simply a myth, it is a realm of enlightened tranquillity and transparent awareness that exists in a state of potential within each and every urban dweller. It just happens to be that the Urban Guru in me has become manifest that I use the honourable title.

But you, also have the ability to create a serene personal utopia, within your current life, to become your own Urban Guru, to travel within the city without moving, to swim in an ocean of pure cosmic intelligence, to realise the divine nature of your very being with every single moment, with every single breathe.

But there is a bloody war on; it is a spiritual war to free or keep captive, the Urban Guru within you. To allow yourself to become all that you are destined to be, or to remain in a state of dull, stressed, mediocrity.

This battle has been prophesised by many cultures and it has been given different names; Holy War, Jihad, Shamhhala, Amalek, Armageddon, but ultimately all the mystical traditions explain that the great battle is a personal spiritual war.

One of these noble traditions explains that in order to create your personal utopia, the campaign you must wage is for the annihilation of your own internal cynicism.

Internal cynicism is the only thing stopping you truly living the life of your dreams, of becoming extremely successful, of living in your own version of heaven on earth.

To annihilate cynicism, you must become a something of a Jedi Knight, Sámi-Warrior and Buddhist monk, finding peace and stillness within, trusting the unfolding of life, armed with a powerfully loving heart and protected by a potent psychic shield.

Learn to relax, give yourself permission to trust and believe in yourself completely. Give yourself the opportunity to be open to the unknown within you, to all that is good and innocent in you.

When you reach that place you will realise that; You are the Urban Guru!

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This was first published in the Aug 2007 edition of EN Magazine

PEACE

Conflict or anykind cannot be resolved by more conflict,

Anti-war marchs just increase war,

Boycots just add spritual fuel to the problem

I’d just learn to focus

To breathe,

to spend time developing a mediative practice

even if it’s for a few mins a day

Breathing in and out

saying words like, Love, Peace, Relax, Calm, Bliss, Happiness, God, Divine, Tranquility, etc…

to yourself quietly.

Imagine a bright white healing light entering your lungs, filling your entire being with love and bliss,

see yourself as a being of calm healing light

a supernova of divine energy

smile inwardly to yourself,

say I allow myself the chance to be free, to be truly free,

happiness is my birthright, etc…

become the sourse of love, peace and blessings in your own life

don’t worry about office conflicts

if you can rediscover peace within yourself - the entire world will stop fighting

within you is the divine, the power to change, the power to create, to influence, to manifest your dreams

make sure your dreams are hopefilled and love filled.

wishing you much love
the Urban Guru