Sometimes life’s magic reveals itself to you in little moments, sometimes you only see it in retrospect. Helen’s 8-step process will empower you to trust your unfolding pathway through life…
Helen Rebello is the author of the highly-anticipated The Magical Unfolding: 8 Magical Processes for Peace, Potential and Purpose (RELEASED 25 October 2018). An intuitive mentor, self-development teacher, and former tutor at The College of Cranio-Sacral Therapy in London, Helen has spent over a decade empowering soulful women to find more meaning and magic in their life and unlock the courage to live and work on their terms. www.helenrebello.com
When I was 19 years old, I had a life-saving “awakening”. After 18 months in a controlling, abusive relationship, living in fear and trapped in the belief I was unworthy, I made a decision to save myself. Deep down in my soul, there was an intact part of me that quietly rebelled and resisted. An inner strong core that couldn’t be broken. An invisible driving force that was curious, brave, and strong-willed enough to change things. Which is how I ended up standing on the precipice of a new life, waiting anxiously for a taxi to arrive to drive me to the next destination on my life journey.
I call that moment my first “magical awakening” and without the magically unfolding path that led me to that scary place, I wouldn’t have the wonderful life I have now.
I share this because I want you to know there’s a core, strong part of you that cannot be broken. No matter where you are now, what’s happened in your life, or how much ground you think you have to cover, you can reclaim your right to a life you love. In truth, you’re already on your path and you’ve covered more ground than you know.
Just like mine, your life won’t magically change overnight. However by walking your pathway intentionally, and making peace with your path to date, you’ll soon realise your today contains the potential to make your tomorrows full of wonder, inner joy and deep fulfilment. Your life changes bit by bit, until the cumulative effect of intentional daily choices one day creates massive change.
I put magic back into my life in 8 steps, which compelled me to write a book empowering others to do the same. Life is too short to spend it living in constant busyness, wondering why you’re here and what life’s about, so I’m now on a mission to empower 100,000 women worldwide to fulfil their potential.
Here are the first two steps you can take to put magic back into your life:
- Create Your Declaration of Promise
Putting the magic back in your life starts with self-affirmation: telling yourself you can trust and embrace each step. This is a simple, free-flowing writing exercise, which need not take any more than 5 minutes. In fact, if you take too long doing it, you can be fairly certain your inner perfectionist has taken over.
This isn’t about perfect writing, or setting up your ideal space; it is about making a promise to yourself. All you need is a pen, paper or your journal, or even a beautiful card if you have one. Feel free to make this ceremonial and add in things you love such as candles, music and flowers. Take a deep breath, shrug your shoulders, then ask yourself this question: If anything were possible, how would you love the next 6 months to unfold for you?
Let yourself freely write your response without censorship, and see what comes up. You might surprise yourself. With your thoughts and feelings in mind, I invite you write the following Declaration of Promise to yourself, then sign and date it.
I, *insert your name* will embrace possibility, stay open, suspend disbelief, and commit to following the Magical Unfolding pathway wherever it takes me. If my vision is meant for me as I see it today, I trust that it will unfold. If not, I trust I will discover a more aligned, fulfilling one.
You can’t end up in a different place without setting a clear intention first, so once you’ve made your declaration of promise to yourself, something really powerful happens. Try it as soon as you can to see what unfolds. You’ve got nothing to lose.
- Motivate Yourself by Raising Your Self-Worth Bar
One of the biggest issues we all encounter when embarking on anything new is staying motivated long enough to get past the first hard bit. Without self-worth in place it is almost impossible to honor commitments to yourself, never mind feel motivated.
For motivation to stick you must truly believe your desired outcome is possible, that you are capable of achieving it, and you really want it. In order to truly believe this, you have to value and believe in yourself. Raising your self-worth bar helps you value yourself enough to minimise distractions and not put off honoring yourself any longer.
Imagine if from this day forward, you never again criticized yourself, swallowed your truth, buried your dreams, or put yourself in the dog house for simply being human (or if you did, you apologized to yourself for it and then moved on)?
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it was also possible for you to exponentially increase your belief that you’ve been worthy since the day you were born? Well, you can.
In the book, I share simple exercises to help you raise your self-worth bar. One of these is a technique to befriend your Ego, so that it is less able to demotivate and railroad you.
Put aside the definitions and theories you have about the Ego for now, as I invite you to view it differently. In this case, as a Puppy Dog. Like actual puppies, your Ego needs to be cared for, and just wants to be loved. There is absolutely no point fighting with it, as this merely depletes your energy and gives your Ego more power. Instead, rather than let your Puppy Dog Ego tell you what to do, choose to befriend it, by naming and identifying it. Mine is called Sammy. He’s male, and a labradoodle puppy – intelligent but also quite scatty, bouncy, and willful!
On the virtual car trip representing your journey through life, you get to take the wheel. You can invite your Puppy Dog Ego to sit in the back and behave nicely, alongside your inner critic. When it plays up or gets too noisy, you can choose to take it for a walk; by doing something that gets your body moving. This shifts your energy out of your head, which is where the Puppy Dog Ego hangs out.
Imagine you’re driving in traffic, Puppy Dog Ego right beside you, when a car driver in a hurry cuts you up. Your immediate reaction is probably to express something we will politely name ‘distaste’. Note the use of the word immediate, that’s your Puppy Dog Ego rearing up and baring its teeth to protect you. There is no thought, only a reaction.
Now imagine the same scenario, but with your Puppy Dog Ego sitting in the back seat. You feel the same instant rising indignation; but as soon as it starts to rise, you notice your Puppy Dog Ego trying to take over, and rather than let it spoil your day with angry thoughts about the injustice, you choose a different response. You think something like: that man is in a hurry. Maybe he’s rushing to see someone in hospital. That thought might not be true, but it doesn’t really matter; because you have saved your day from getting railroaded by a random incident the other person left behind the moment it happened.
In other words, you responded rather than reacted and didn’t let your Puppy Dog Ego dictate your day by keeping your focus on feeling aggrieved. This kind of Ego re-frame helps you feel more peaceful and positive about your ability to take back control over yourself, which raises your self-worth bar.
Once you have taken these first two steps, keep going! There is more to you and your life than you could ever imagine. By the time you finish The Magical Unfolding and have taken these 8 steps, you’ll start embodying that belief as if you’d known it all along. Which of course you do… you simply don’t realise it yet.
