Michelle Gordon's Blog, page 30

Lost in a Technical Blip

Am just dealing with the fact that in transferring photos from my phone to my computer, about four months worth (the last four months) have vanished. They are no longer on my phone and they are not on my computer. Somewhere along the way, there must have been an error and they are now irretrievable. Luckily, a few I had uploaded to facebook, but the rest, well, they’re just gone. Of course after talking to the helpful people at Samsung, I realise that I should have done a back up and transfer via Kies Air, rather than the old school transferring method. But it’s too late for that now.

As upsetting as it is, to lose the photos, (even though I cannot remember all of what I have taken in the last few months) it started me thinking about how reliant I am on my computer and my phone. Of which either could easily malfunction or be lost or stolen. You could say – save it all to the cloud, it’ll be safe there. But is it? Have you ever considered what you would do or how you would feel if Facebook of WordPress suddenly deleted your account? Or they had a massive blip and all the photos, conversations and posts were lost?

I would imagine that it would be similar to the loss of having all of your photographs destroyed in a fire or flood in your home. They’re damaged beyond repair, and there is nothing you can do except to accept they are gone, and to move on. In some ways, it is a kind of cleansing, a de-cluttering. How often do you look at your old photos? How often to you re-read old letters or diaries or old blog posts? Is it even healthy to hold onto all of these old memories? I used to create scrapbooks from my photos, and in more recent times, photobooks, and it’s fun to occasionally look back and remember good memories. But would my life be terrible if that was not possible? Would the world come to an end if I couldn’t look at my holiday photos from ten years ago? I doubt it. We are apparently exposed to more information in a single hour, than people in 1900 were exposed to in a single year. So it is probably actually impossible to keep up with the flow of information coming to you and also revisit previous information and remain a sane human being.

Though the photos may be irreplaceable, and I cannot re-create them, when lost, surely it is a better idea to just become focused on creating new memories? On having new experiences? That’s where my focus is right now. I have decided that mourning the loss of some digital files is not a good use of my time today. Instead I intend to learn my lesson about backing up, and plan for new and exciting events and experiences this year. And even, I may take less photos. Why? Because sometimes, in this new digital world, we spend more time capturing our lives on digital film than we do actually experiencing the moment. Have you noticed this? You go to a party, and instead of communicating properly with one another, the guests are taking photos of each other, then immediately uploading them to twitter and facebook, with captions about how great a time they’re having, then they spend the rest of the party on those social media platforms, responding to comments about the photo. They’re not actually present in the moment. They’re not fully at the party. I know I am guilty of this, I think anyone with a smartphone is probably guilty of having done this. So perhaps this is the year of spending more real-time with people, and less digital time. We’ll see if I manage to do that.

On another backing up note – if you are a writer, like myself. then you know how important it is to back up your works-in -progress. Last year, while writing The Other Side, my netbook crashed and shut down, and when I re-opened my file, 2000 words of my novel were missing. Not just the scenes I had just written, but some earlier scenes too. Because of the way I write (no plan or plot) I had absolutely no idea what I had lost exactly. There’s no way I could have re-written the scenes. After a minute of absolute panic (and screaming swear words, good thing I live in the middle of the woods), I vaguely remembered that when I downloaded Scrivener, there was some kind of automatic backup system. Using their help feature, I managed to find out where the auto-backups were stored, and there they were – all my lost words. So if you are a writer, and you sometimes get lazy about backing up your work – we all do at times – use Scrivener. It saved me then, and I have no doubt it will probably save me again in the future.

I hope you are having a better day than I have had so far, and now that I have made peace with losing my files, it’s time to get on with some work. Which of course, I will back up

Listen to Your Heart

Last week I did an Oracle Card reading for a friend who wanted to know whether or not she should continue her University Studies. I reiterated in my video that my oracle card readings, though giving answers to specific questions, are not meant to be taken as professional, legal, or medical advice. They are simply a nudge from the Angels (Faeries or Old Souls) for you to listen to yourself. I figured that if my friend was asking such a question, then she obviously felt like she wasn’t happy doing the course. The question wasn’t so much whether should she leave, it was more – what was holding her back from making the decision? The advice that Velvet gave was to be more creative, to reach for the stars and to listen out for messages in song lyrics. After watching the reading, my friend told me that she had noticed songs the days before, in which the lyrics were telling her to follow her heart. To listen to herself. The day after I posted the reading, she quit her Uni course.

It may seem that she acted too quickly, perhaps rashly, but she had been thinking about leaving for a while, she just didn’t have the courage to face her fears and follow her heart. She felt stifled by the course and longed to be more creative, and knew that ultimately, the job she would get as a result of having the degree was likely to be just as stifling.

It seems to be more difficult now, with all of the demands on our attention and senses, to listen to our hearts. To really get still and hear that small, still voice within. The voice that knows exactly what it is that will bring us the most joy, the most happiness and the most love. Our minds interfere. Our programming cuts in. External stimuli fight for every available moment of our lives. Suddenly, years have passed and we are still doing the thing we dislike, are surrounded by people that we are barely tolerating and in the same financial situation.

So I would like to invite you to take a few moments. Switch everything off or go somewhere where there is nothing to distract you. Get still and quiet, and invite the voice within to speak to you. Ask yourself if you are on the right path. Ask yourself if your current lifestyle brings you joy. And if you know that things need to change, ask yourself what you need to do in order to make those changes happen.

You have within you all the answers you need. But if you do need a little nudge from the Angels, send me your question and who you wish to ask – Velvet, Aria or Amethyst. And with their help, I will try to connect you to the wisdom within you.

You are so intelligent, talented and beautiful!

What went through your mind when you read the post title? Did you laugh? Did you think – ‘Okay, what does she want?’ Did you think, or even say out loud – ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’?

Or did you smile and say – ‘Thank you.’ ?

Just purely from my own experience and observations, most people tend to be in the first camp. (Or is it mainly a British thing?) Because it’s difficult to receive compliments. Usually we brush it off – ‘Oh, don’t be silly, I’m really not that awesome.’ or ‘This old thing? It doesn’t really fit me properly, it looks better on my sister.’ Or we throw the compliment back at the person – ‘You look gorgeous too! Are those new shoes? They’re lovely!’

But have you really considered what you are doing when you are unable to receive and fully accept a compliment? Imagine that the compliments were really gifts, or, if you like, money. If someone gave you £20, for no reason other than they wanted you to have it, would you throw it on the ground? Would you give it back to them immediately? Would you laugh in their face and tell them not to be so ridiculous?

I would hope not.

There are those of us who love to give. We love to make others happy, and we run ourselves ragged trying to please others (many of these people are Incarnated Angels, which I talk a little about in my latest oracle card reading on Youtube) but quite often, amazing givers are terrible at receiving. And they’re even worse at asking for help when they really need it.

Though I am more of an Old Soul than an Angel, Earth Angels in general have this similar problem of being too giving. I find it hard to ask for help, and sometimes even harder to accept it. A while back, I bit the bullet and wrote a blog post asking for help, and as a result of that post, I have developed amazing friendships with people who genuinely want to help me and see me do well. At times, I’ve found it hard to accept their help, but I’ve come to realise, that I’m helping them by receiving the help that they are offering. And when possible, I find ways to help them, so there is a healthy flow back and forth, (but not in a throw it back in their face kind of way.)

In the last couple of weeks, I have been organising a party to end all parties, for my 30th Birthday. Though I already had many of the decorations and things from the previous two Harry Potter themed parties I’ve thrown, there was still a lot more to do, as I am transforming the entire house and parts of outside too. It was a little overwhelming to say the least. Especially with my work schedule and writing my new book etc.

So my amazing friend, Liz Lockwood, and my awesome sister, Liz Gordon, and my fab mother Sally Byrne, all offered their help. At first, I was like – no, no, it’s all fine, I can do it. But after they repeated their offer of help a few more times, I finally said, actually, I really could do with some help. And do you know what? With their amazing creative input, the party is now going to be epic. It’s a team effort now, (along with the help of my partner and his three kids) and I know that everyone (myself included) will have the most amazing time. All because I finally accepted help that was being offered to me.

It’s hard work at first, accepting a compliment with a smile and a ‘thank you’, and accepting the help or the money that is offered. But it’s worth persevering. Because not only are you telling the Universe that you are open to receiving the abundance that is available to you, you are also making others feel good, because they have been able to give to you. And they have been able to make a difference in your life.

So here it is – your first chance to receive and completely accept a compliment:

You are a fabulous person, who has a wonderful, kind heart, and who brings joy to everyone around you.

 

Let me know how you did

A Sign from the Angels

Have you ever received a sign from the Angels? Would you recognise it if you did?

It’s long been believed that white feathers are signs from the Angels. As well as rainbows, heart-shaped clouds or anything else that you may have asked for as proof of their existence. I’ve had many signs from the Angels. Sometimes I ask for something specific, like the time I asked for butterflies if I was on the right path at the time. All of a sudden they were everywhere. As well as real ones, I’d see pictures of them, and wooden ones and plastic ones. Would those butterflies have still showed up in my life if I hadn’t asked the Angels for them? Possibly. But had I not asked for them, would I have noticed them? Probably not.

So if you’re in need of help or comfort, ask the Angels for a sign that they are indeed with you. I remember several years ago, that I had requested rose petals as a sign that the Angels were with me. Time passed and I forgot my request. Then I came home after having had tests in hospital, and was feeling particularly low, when I looked out of the kitchen window to see that my rose plant, that had been in perfect bloom just that morning, was now devoid of roses. And the garden path was covered in rose petals. It hadn’t been a windy day, so I knew that it had been the Angels’ way of telling me that I was not alone.

If you want to read more about such signs, Doreen Virtue’s book – Signs from Above is very good.

Earlier this week, I made a video asking for you to send in your questions that you wanted either Velvet, Aria or Amethyst to answer. After uploading the video, I noticed that when I started talking about Amethyst, the Angel, a tiny white weather drifted down from nowhere, right in front of me. I hadn’t seen it when filming. It was also spotted by my dear friend, and incarnated elemental. Annette Ecuyere. She has asked a question of Amethyst, which I will record the answer to next week.

You can view the video with the feather on my blog post, or on you tube, the feather features at 1:40.

A wonderful question was asked of Amethyst, you can see the video of Amethyst answering it below.

What Question Would You Ask an Angel?

If you could ask an Angel a question, what would you ask?

The reason I created the Amethyst, Aria and Velvet Oracle cards, was so that my readers could interact with the characters from my books. I’ve been doing Oracle Card of the Day readings on youtube, but it felt too general and a little boring to pick a card for a specific day but with no specific question.

So I am putting a call out to my readers, and indeed anyone with a burning question they would like answered, to send me their question, and who the question is for – Aria the Faerie, Amethyst the Angel or Velvet the Old Soul.

You can watch the video below to see how it works.

Keep the Fire Burning

 

(The above photo is not of my house, but of the Gryffindor Common Room, taken at the Making of Harry Potter Studios in London. I did have a photo of our fire, but this one looked so much cooler!)

I live in a house where in the winter, our heating and hot water comes from a wood-burning stove. To keep the house warm and the showers hot, it takes a consistent daily effort to light the fire and keep it going throughout the day. And if you can light the fire in the morning with embers from the previous nights’ fire, it takes much less effort to keep it going. If  decided one day that I couldn’t be bothered to light the fire, the house would soon grow really cold. After a few days, there would only be cold showers available and a whole lot of shivering. During really cold winters, it would take three days to properly warm up the house after getting the fire going again.

So what does this have to do with anything? Well, I realised yesterday that writing a book is very similar to keeping the house warm. When in the middle of a novel, if I write something every day, I stay in the flow of the story, I can remember what the characters are up to, and each day I might only need to re-read a few lines to re-orientate myself and keep going. The story then remains consistent, and I can get a novel done in a month. But when there are long periods of time between writing, days, weeks, sometimes even months, the story grows cold. I then have to re-read everything, try to remember what was going on and it may take a few days to pick up the thread and continue the story in a way I’m happy with.

So if I know this, why don’t I write every day? After all, all the great writers did. They had a routine that they stuck to, and they would make writing the most important task on their daily agenda. Truth is, I don’t really know why I don’t write every day. When I wrote my first novel, The Earth Angel Training Academy, it was easy to write every day. Of course, I wasn’t working or in a relationship then, so I had no other major distractions. But also, there were no expectations. No one knew who I was, no one had read my work (other than a few English teachers, of course) so I was free to create without worry. Now, with readers waiting for my next published work, there’s a little more pressure. Some people are motivated by this kind of pressure, but as a writer who never knows if her writing is any good until the first person reads the manuscript, it’s more nerve-wracking than motivating!

But perhaps these are just excuses, or self-sabotage. I mean, I could just as easily say that I just haven’t found the right routine, or the right writing chair or the perfect music. Setting crazy deadlines used to be a fantastic motivator, but once you’ve allowed a few to slip by, they lose their potency. I recently came across the method that Seinfeld uses, where you put a cross on the calendar for every day you do the thing you want to do. And the crosses then form a chain. If you don’t write for a day, you ‘break the chain’. I was planning on giving the method a go, after all I figured it couldn’t hurt, but ultimately, I just need to figure out a way to get some words down every day, to keep the story from going cold, and having to start all over again each time I sit down to write.

How do you motivate yourself? What makes you plug away on a daily basis, keeping the fire going? I don’t think there is a magic, one-size-fits-all answer, but I do find it interesting to hear different people’s ways of working. Comment below if you’d like to share yours.

The Elphite only $1.99 on Kindle!

Just wanted to let all of my American readers know that they can get a copy of The Elphite on Kindle for just $1.99. It’s for a limited amount of time though, so grab your copy now!

A New Vision for 2014

In less than 30 hours, the new year will have begun. I feel that 2012 was a year of destruction (of old ways, old patterns and old relationships) 2013 was a year of transformation (finding new paths and new ways of being) and 2014, in my mind, is the year of making things happen. Of creating the reality that we actually want to live in.

In order to prepare for a year of making it happen, I feel that it’s important to have a clear vision. The clearer you are about where you want to go, what you want to do and accomplish, the better the reality you will create.

So, to begin with, I have my Vision Board, which I created with my publishing partner and long-time friend – Liz Lockwood.

Creating a vision board (or diary – I did a diary for 2013, and many of the things in there came to fruition, but that’s another blog post!) is very simple. You put pictures, photos, sketches, words etc on a board. Preferably in a place where you will see it often, so as to remind yourself to keep your activities in line with you dreams and goals. My board is currently propped up on my desk. I will probably stick it on the wall next to me. Having photos of yourself on the board is important – so that you are placing yourself in that reality.

The other thing you could do is simply sketch it. You don’t need to be an artist to do this, stick figures are fine. I watched this great TED talk the other day, where a lady called Patti Drobrowolski demonstrates how to do this.

This was my attempt at sketching my desired future!

So as you can see, no artistic skills required! But it was good to clarify things, to decide what I wanted.

Tomorrow is Marketing Plan day. and I plan to figure out how to market my books, and how to structure my time more efficiently. Which means that by the time January 1st rolls around, I will have in place everything I need to make things happen in 2014.

What are you going to make happen?

Merry Christmas Eve!

My stocking is out ready, is yours??

Well, it’s certainly been a very interesting year, and I don’t know if I am sad or relieved to see it end. I spent the first five months of the year living out of my suitcase, as I travelled to California, Hong Kong, around the UK, Oregon and then London! By May I was feeling a little worn out, but at the same time, I felt ready to make things happen. It was after attending Unleash the Power Within with Tony Robbins, and walking on fire, that I finally decided to go for it, and make a living doing what I enjoyed, not doing something that drained me.

Pretty much the day after making this decision, I got my first project, helping the awesome Adrian Incledon-Webber with publishing his first book – Heal Your Home. More projects soon came along, as my authors began recommending me to others, and word of mouth about my Amethyst Angel Indie Publishing servicesspread.

Then in July, after 6 months apart, my partner, (and Twin Flame) met up again, and decided to get back together. And I’ve been living with him in our little hideaway in the woods ever since, feeling like I am now finally home.

I finished the latest novel in the Earth Angel series, The Other Side,  in September, and released in it November. It was a tough one to write, but I got there in the end. Seeing as I only managed to write one novel this year, I plan to publish two novels and a poetry anthology next year, so along with all the new publishing projects I have been taking on recently, it looks like it will be a very busy year indeed! At the moment I am very pleased to be working with the lovely Lori Lesko, on her book – Copyright – A Novel. Keep an eye out for it!

Also in the pipeline for next year, is to begin creating audio books, re-vamping and republishing The Doorway to PAM, and doing more regular oracle card readings and other videos. Oh, and I have a big birthday in January too… I am both excited and a little wary, but I know it will be an amazing year, no matter what my age is

But before all of that, I plan to have a wonderfully chilled-out Christmas, and I hope you do too! Thank you for following my blog, and for supporting me by buying and reading my books, it is all very much appreciated.

Love and light,

Michelle.xx

The Tapping Solution Movie

Just this evening I watched The Tapping Solution. It’s being shown free on the net until the 20th of December. It’s really a must-watch. Even if you know all about EFT, or Meridian Tapping, it’s still worth watching. Why? Because unless you actually use these tools, they’re pretty useless! Which is something that’s really been hitting home with me just recently. I have read so many books, watched so many videos, spoken to so many people. I know what tools to use to improve different parts of my life, I know how to be healthy, I know what is good for me and what isn’t. So why do I still remain stuck in the past at times? Why do I keep thinking the same thoughts? Keep running the same patterns?

Because it’s easier than implementing the processes and tools and actually changing. That’s why.

It’s easier to be broke and miserable than it is to be abundantly wealthy and happy. Because to be those things, it takes work. It doesn’t just happen. You actually have to use the methods that you know work consistently to get results. And therein lies my sticking point. Consistency. I have no routine to my life, no real structure. I work from home, I am my own boss (though I do have clients that at time set deadlines I need to stick to). I don’t have to be up at a certain time, I don’t have to worry about feeding anyone except myself and my partner (and he will testify to the fact that when I’m in the middle of something, I don’t notice it’s past lunchtime until it’s 2 or 3pm).

So how to implement a routine when you don’t need to?

Haven’t figured that out yet! But I have found a way to remind myself to use the tapping -

 

Yup, I have written it on the wall above the sink where I brush my teeth. So at least twice a day, I will tap about anything that is bothering me. I already did that this evening and ended up with a big grin on my face! So watch the movie, the link is here - http://thetappingsolution.com/screening/ts-film.html then write on your walls and release all of the beliefs and the pain and anything else that is holding you back.

By the way, I am no expert, but I have seen the benefits first-hand from tapping. In fact, I blogged back last year about how I used EFT to rid myself of my fear of public speaking. If you try it and see some benefits yourself, comment below, if you tried it and it didn’t work, still comment! Happy Tapping