Marian Buck Murray

Release, Relax, Tap into Your Brilliance. EFT Tapping to help you unleash your creative genius.

Daily Practices for Focus, Peace, & Joy

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I know sometimes I must sound like a broken record.  I repeat myself again and again to my clients, my students, my friends, my family.  And I’ll say it again.  Self-care is not an option if you want to live a happy, peaceful life.  Especially if you’re a sensitive, empathic, person.

Self-care, of course, includes the obvious elements, such as a nutrient-rich-plant-rich-diet, plenty of exercise, and good hygiene. None are optional if you want to maintain good health.

To maintain happiness and inner-peace, self-care must include emotional, spiritual practices as well. My daily practices, which I share below, help me stay centered, focused, optimistic, connected, creative, productive, peaceful, and happy. 

These are the tools and techniques that work for me.  With most, I mix and match, depending upon the day, the amount of time available, and my emotional/spiritual needs.  Some practices, such as Meditation and Gratitude, are non-negotiable, and I do them every day.

Most days I usually do at least 4 or 5 of these techniques. Some days I do only 2.  Other days I might do them all!  Some are so quick, or so easy to fit in my day, that they don’t take ‘extra time.’   And, truth be told, when I don’t do anything, which does happen once in a while, I feel completely off, out of focus, and anxious.  That’s why I use a checklist to track my progress.  I’ve learned the hard way, it’s not worth falling off track.

Create your own plan. Take any of the following techniques that work for you, add in your own, and tuck them into pockets throughout your day.  Choose at least one activity, such as meditation, to do each day, no matter what. None of the activities need to take a lot of time.  And, as long as you’re peppering them throughout the day, you’ll be optimizing your energy.

Meditation
I practice some form of meditation, each day, from 10 to 60 minutes. Some days I do two or more shorter meditations.  Insight Timer,  is a fantastic, free, app, that I use to time my meditations.  It comes with an extensive library of sounds, bells, meditations, and music.

Another meditation I love is the Eco-Meditation, created by Dawson Church, founder of EFT Universe.  When I assist at Dawson’s professional trainings, we practice this meditation each morning before we begin class for the day.  At home, I use this meditation on my own, without audio. Click here for the Eco-Meditation instructions

Abundance Meditation
For this meditation, I use The Abundance Book, by John Randolph Price.  It’s a little green book with 10 principle statements. I meditate on one principle a day for 15 minutes, for 40 days or more.  This helps keep me in an abundant, spiritual, frame of mind.

Gratitude Meditation
Closing my eyes, I meditate for 5 minutes on something for which I am grateful.  It can be something that I already have, or that I would like to have. This sense of gratitude feels truly authentic, and really, really good.

Goals
I hand-write write my goals, in present tense, expressing my gratitude for reaching them. This feels good, and it helps me keep on top of my goals.  I write my goals nearly every day. This takes about 10 minutes.

Morning Pages
Originated by Author Julia Cameron, morning pages are 3 hand-written free-flow pages each morning.  They’re invaluable for clearing the mind, and sparking creative flow.

Yoga or Exercise
Exercising in the morning invigorates me for the rest of the day.  Movement is crucial for efficient energy flow, lymph flow, strength, anxiety release, and more.

Heart Breath
I add the Heart Breath in whenever I feel stuck in my head.  The Heart Breath helps me drop out of a busy, over-worked mind, into the peace and calm of my heart.  It’s a great tool for reducing anxiety.  1 minute, or longer.

Uplifting Reading
Somewhere during my day, I find time to read.  Sometimes it’s work-related, but it’s always uplifting. 

Uplifting Listening
This includes music, podcasts, Hayhouse Radio, audio courses, and more.  I like to listen when I make dinner. This helps keep me in a positive, optimistic, frame of mind.

EFT Tapping
This is an any-time-of-the-day, as-needed, practice.  EFT Tapping is perfect for releasing anxiety, tension, fear, sadness, or any other unwanted feelings that might creep in.  Click here for an illustrated guide for the tapping points.

More Gratitude
Gratitude is something that can be expressed in many ways throughout the day.  In addition to my 5-minute gratitude meditation, I enjoy spontaneous moments of gratitude, or write a gratitude list, or a thank you note, or simply say thank you, thank you, thank you as I do something that brings me joy.  Gratitude helps me feel more connected to the spiritual world.  And, the more grateful I am, the more I have to be grateful for.

Nature Walk
Nothing better for pleasing the senses and soothing the soul.

Enjoy!  And reach out — let me know what works for you! 

Love,

Marian

To schedule a FREE 30 Minute Call, where I’ll help you get clear on your best strategy to honor your sensitivity, and give you a tool to turn it into a superpower,  click here.

How To Honor Your Sensitivity

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Being sensitive means many things.  As a sensitive, empathic person myself, I know how painful it can be to feel or see certain things more deeply than other people. Over the years I have learned how to manage my sensitivity so that it has transformed into a gift I truly embrace.  It’s this process that I  share with my clients and students.

If you’re a sensitive person, you might notice that when others’ don’t share your depth of experience, you wind up feeling misunderstood, or even excluded. You might have heightened sensitivities to noise, smell, foods, and environment. If so, these sensitivities can easily contribute to feelings of weakness, illness, and irritability.

In addition, by believing society’s negative critique of sensitivity, you might think that you’re wrong for being ‘so sensitive’.  Nothing could be further from the truth! 

What’s important for a sensitive person, is to take steps to honor your sensitivity so that it transforms from something painful into a true gift of beauty and strength.

Below are some key steps to turn your sensitivity into a gift that will enrich your life, over and over again.

Understand Your Sensitivity – Understand that if you are one of the estimated 20% of folks with heightened sensitivity, you have a nervous system that feels things more deeply than most. This means that you need to care for yourself differently than someone without your depth of sensitivity. Get to know yourself better. Read up on the different aspects of sensitivity – there are a number of good books on the topic. Understanding yourself will help you increase feelings of self-acceptance.  And, self-acceptance is key to honoring your sensitivity.

Get Clear About What Feels Right for You – We’re often brought up to believe that we ‘should’ enjoy certain experiences that others enjoy.  Getting clear on what feels right for you might mean you don’t go to that party, or you opt for one or two good friends over a group of friends.  Get clear about your ‘shoulds’ versus your true desires. Trust your intuition to help you find the right balance for you.

Honor Your Need for Downtime –  Sensitive people need downtime. And, it can be easy to implement.  Treat yourself to a peaceful nature walk, or sit quietly in a darkened room.  A quick nap can do wonders to calm an overwhelmed mind and nerves.  Throughout each day, allow for short periods of downtime.  Regular breaks of just 5 minutes each can make a profound difference.

Create Self-Care Rituals —   As a sensitive person, you likely lead a rich inner life. Honor it by nourishing it.  Meditation, music, art, yoga, salt baths, and mind-body therapies are all wonderful tools to help you nourish your creative, intuitive soul.

Get Enough Sleep – Because sensitive people take in more information, more deeply, they need more sleep than people who are not highly sensitive.  This means a daily minimum of 8 hours of sleep, preferably 9.  If you have trouble sleeping, be sure to create a soothing bedtime ritual. Eliminate stimulants, and forgo electronics at least 1-2 hours before bed.  Know that by just closing your eyes, you will help to calm and replenish your nervous system. 

Take steps to honor your sensitivity.  It’s a divine gift.  And it’s a gift our world needs now. 

In Courage,

Marian

To schedule a FREE 30 Minute Call, where I’ll help you get clear on your best strategy to honor your sensitivity, and give you a tool to turn it into a superpower,  click here.

 

 

Overcome Procrastination

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Procrastination makes easy things hard, hard things harder.  ~ Mason Cooley

Procrastination just doesn’t feel good.  Period.  Right now, just think about something you’re avoiding doing.  How does it feel when you think about what you’re not doing.  If you’re like most of us, thinking about what you’re not doing, but should be doing, can trigger feelings of guilt, anxiety, and lots of self-judgement.  Problem is, when you get mired all those negative feelings, it’s difficult to get anything done!

What’s important is getting clear about the reason why you’re procrastinating in the first place.  Is it because you’re afraid of the outcome?  Or that it’s too hard? Too complicated? Are you afraid of making a mistake? Are you afraid that you won’t succeed? Or that you will succeed?

Most times, fear and uncertainty are underlying ingredients of procrastination.  We avoid what we don’t know, what feels uncomfortable or scary.

So get clear.  Get clear about what you’re avoiding doing.  Get clear about the feelings that get triggered because you are procrastinating.  And, get clear about the feelings you are trying to avoid by procrastinating.

Here are some suggestions to help you move forward:

Focus on the benefits of doing the thing you’re avoiding.  What would happen if you did it?  How good would you feel?  What else could you do as a result of taking this first step?  Set your imagination free and imagine all of the good-feeling benefits you’ll experience once you take action.

Start Small.  – One reason we procrastinate is that we tend to look at the subject of our procrastination as if it’s a great big scary monster.  It looks too hard, too complicated, too overwhelming, too impossible to tackle.  So, to counter this tendency, look instead at the one small step you can take in the direction you’ve been avoiding.  One small step, and then another and another, keeps you moving forward.  That’s all it takes.

Enrich Your Environment — Sometimes we procrastinate because we dread the experience of the task we’re avoiding.  For example, you might dread paying the bills, doing your taxes, writing a report, doing household chores, etc.  To make these tasks more enjoyable, enrich your environment with music or an interesting podcast, a special drink or treat, and even some aromatherapy.  Or, take your work to a café, or a cooperative work-space.  And be sure to get as comfortable as possible.  Enrich your environment, and you’ll enrich your experience and your chances for success.  You  might even enjoy yourself!

Let Go of Resistance —  When we resist a specific action or activity, we’re vulnerable to making it feel far more difficult than it really is.  By moving forward in non-resistance, we accept ourchallenges without making them harder.  Not everything feels pleasurable.  Some things feel uncomfortable and even painful.  When we let go of resisting the unpleasantness of an action, we’re more equipped to handle it.

Increase Your Knowledge —  We often avoid what we don’t know how to do.  So, if there’s something you’d like to do, but are avoiding, increase your knowledge about it.  Find out what you need to know to move towards desired goal.  Oftentimes, just the activity of researching your goal will peak your interest, and inspire you to take action.  ( Be sure, however, to avoid overly researching your goal, since this can lead to even more procrastination.)

Release Fear – Fear is probably one of the biggest underlying factors of procrastination.  If fear is an issue for you, first get clear about the fear you feel when it comes to your procrastination.  Once you’re clear about your fear, you can use EFT Tapping, Heart Breath, or deep breathing to help it release.   Contact me for more information on using EFT Tapping and the Heart Breath.

Click Here for a complimentary tapping audio to help you overcome procrastination. 

In Courage,

Marian

My Top 10 Stress Busters

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Stress can happen anytime, anywhere.  And, these days, it’s easy to walk right into it.  From finances and job obligations, to family and home, you might be dealing with an abundance of stress triggers throughout your day. Add in a dose of politics and world events, and it’s easy to get overloaded.

Of course, as a Certified EFT Practitioner, I always recommend using EFT Tapping to ‘deactivate’ persistent stress triggers.  It’s amazing how EFT can help shift the overall stress load in any given situation, even if nothing else changes.

But, life happens.  And, no matter how ‘zen’ you are, stress happens too.  What’s more, the stress hormone cortisol triggers blood loss from the thinking part of your brain,  and will interfere with your ability to think most effectively.  What’s crucial is to  release stress as you go, to prevent stress from building up until it manifests as pain, or emotional unbalance.

Releasing stress on a daily basis will help you keep your energy and nervous system calm and well balanced.

Here are my Top 10 Stress Busters (in no particular order) :

Meditation —   Meditation has been shown to  activate the body’s relaxation response. Starting the day with a short 10-20 minute meditation will help create  a peaceful tone for the rest of the day.

Exercise — Workouts such as cardio, yoga, and strength training help increase feel-good endorphins, our body’s natural pain relievers.  Moving and stretching your body will also help release tight muscular tension and stress.  Be sure to stretch before and after your workout to increase flexibility and prevent injury.

Tulsi Tea — Tulsi Tea is made from the adaptogenic herb Holy Basil.  An adaptogenic herb works as an  anti-stress agent.  Holy Basil helps regulate serum cortisol levels and has been found to reduce anxiety and emotional stress.  Organic India offers Tulsi Tea in a variety of delicious flavors.  Mountain Rose Herbs sells Holy Basil in bulk.

Magnesium Bath —  Magnesium is crucial for a number of bodily functions, including the relaxation of body and mind.  It’s widely available in a variety of foods.  Magnesium, however, is easily depleted.  Tight muscles or  a stressed mind might be symptoms of deficient magnesium.  A bath or foot soak in Epsom Salts, or any other type of magnesium salts, will help you replenish depleted magnesium.

Deep Breathing —  Remember to breathe, deeply.  Deep breathing promotes your body’s relaxation response.

Heart Breath — Breathing from your heart takes you out of stressful mind-chatter.  When activated, your heart actually has the power to help your brain  relax.  Click here to download a Heart Breath Audio.

Laughter — Laughter helps oxygenate and relax your body and mind.  Laughter increases endorphins and reduces cortisol   Laughter feels really good and can act as a carthasis to release trapped emotions.   Take laughter seriously !  Watch funny movies, comedy shows,  funny animal Youtube videos, and talk regularly with people who make you laugh.

Binaural Beats — A type of audio-therapy — music embedded with different wave-length frequencies — which helps reduce stress and anxiety.  When listened to with headphones, binaural beats will help entrain brainwaves into a deeper, more relaxed state.

Nature Walk — Nothing like sunshine and fresh air to boost your mood.   Simple, and very powerful.

EFT Tapping — EFT Tapping is one of the best techniques to reduce cortisol, the major stress hormone.  Just tapping on your karate chop point, while breathing deeply, can help calm frayed nerves.  For illustrated EFT Tapping Instructions, click here

Choose a few  of your favorite stress-relief techniques to keep in your ‘back pocket’, and  use as often as needed.  It’s amazing how good it feels to let go!

In Courage,
Marian

 

FREE TRAINING:  Overcome the Fear of Shining in Your Business So You can Do What You Love. Click here for download.

 

 

What Do You Expect?

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Really, what do you expect?  There’s an energy in your expectations, which will affect your behavior, and eventually lead you to attract what you expect.  So, be mindful of your expectations.

Expectations come from past experiences, most often childhood.  For example, if you frequently heard the word ‘no’ when you asked for something as a child, you might refrain from asking for things directly. Expecting to hear a ‘no’, you might find yourself cushioning your requests in an effort to make them sound sweeter.  Or, perhaps you avoid asking for things all together.

If you consistently got rejected by a group of friends, you might expect to be rejected in your current social situations.  This expectation might cause you to act shy, or ‘not yourself’ around other people. This type of behavior can lead to even more rejection, since people won’t be able to get to know you in the way you want to be known.

Expectations such as “work is hard”, or “there’s never enough time”, or “I’ll never get ahead”, will contribute to negative feelings, such as anxiety and fear. These negative feelings will make things feel hard, and zap your motivation, and your ability, to get things done.

Expectations can be tricky, since they’re so often proven right.  Because we see the proof, our expectations seem like indisputable facts. And if they’re indisputable facts, how can we change them?

The key here, is to realize that expectations are merely thoughts about the future, seen through the lens of past experience. 

So, even if we might not be able to change an indisputable fact, we can change both our thoughts, and the lens through which we see our future.

The bottom line? We can change our expectations to help us get what we really want.

How to change your expectations:

Be open to the possibilities. Things might turn out differently than you expect. You can’t be certain about what will happen in the future, so be open to different possibilities.

Rewrite your expectations. Write down a list of your most prominent negative expectations, and rewrite them to be more positive. For example — Change “I’ll never succeed” to  “Wouldn’t it be great if I succeeded at that.”  Don’t force a positive expectation that doesn’t feel true.  Instead, rewrite your expectation as a possible desirable outcome.

Notice your positive expectations. What do you consistently expect?  Do you you expect a great workout?  Do you expect a productive work time?  Do you expect a pleasant conversation with a certain friend?  Watch what happens with your positive expectations.

Keep a positive expectation journal. Expectations love proof. Note what happens as a result of shifting your thoughts.

Visualize.  Close your eyes and imagine a desirable outcome. As much as possible, get into the ‘energy’ of the scene using your emotions and senses.  Visualization will help you change your beliefs about what is possible.

Change your expectations and you will change everything.

 

In Courage,

Marian

 

To clear the old lens through which you see your future, contact me to learn how EFT Tapping can help.

My New Podcast!  Courageous HeartBeats.  Listen on iTunes.