Free e-book for 2 days only

Dear Friends, Fellow Bloggers and Followers,

First I would like to thank everyone that helped me out, downloaded the $0.99 preview version of my very first e-book “Looking @ Life” and wrote a review for me today!

The official release is now starting with it being available for FREE for TWO DAYS only, after which the price will go up!

I want all my friends, fellow bloggers and followers to take advantage of this, so grab a copy now if you have not yet!

http://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B0184CLSOW?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

I would really appreciate it if you would leave a review on Amazon after reading.

With Gratitude,

Pollyesther

Request

Dear reader and follower,

My shortest blog post of all:

I have a late notice request for all my followers.

You have probably wondered why it has been so quiet on my blog lately?

Well… I have been finalizing my book!

Yes that is right, it is on Amazon right now for you to preview, and in desperate need of some reviews before the big launch on November 19 and 20.

I hope some of you can help me out and purchase a $0.99 copy of my very first edition of “Looking @ Life”, read a few chapters and leave a comment in the next 12 hours or so. Thanks and enjoy the read!

You can find it here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0184CLSOW

Forever grateful,
Pollyesther

You have a choice!

15/8/15, 5.30 am. The alarm rings and I push the snooze button a couple of times. I love waking up slowly before my feet touch the soft sheep skin rug next to my bed in the ski lodge. It is only 6 am and at least another fifteen minutes until the rising sun announces the start of another day during the Australian ski season that runs from mid June to the end of September.

Quietly I walk to the kitchen to get my breakfast essentials out from the fridge. I squeeze a fresh lemon into a glass of water and grab the tub of yoghurt, to which I add some muesli once back in my room. The lemons have helped me with keeping the usual “lurgie” at bay, which strikes most mountain staff at some point over Winter. There is nothing worse than having to go out in a blizzard with heavy clothing, struggling to breathe from being clogged up by a cold that just will not clear up in those conditions.

My usual routine in the morning is to check my emails, work schedule and the weather forecast during ‘brekkie’, because at nighttime the lodge is often busy with exchanging the adventures of the day’s past and keeping the fires going among other things like waxing ski’s, showering and cooking.

I love the peace and quiet of the early morning. The sunrises can be spectacular from our lodge on the ridge of the small mountain. It sure is worth getting up early for.

This Saturday morning I find a sad email from a close overseas family member, someone dear has passed away overnight. This news comes as a bit of a shock, seeing I had not heard any news that she had been close to leaving us. It was a little comforting to know it was by choice and despite the difficulty in achieving this, peace was now with her. Still, I did feel sad and also a little useless for not being there to support my grieving family.

Straight away I wrote a short email back and looked forward to catching up by phone soon. It took me a bit of time to find the right words, but felt there was no rush seeing no one had rang to notify me of any early lesson bookings. To be sure I did try logging on to my on-line schedule a few times in between, only to find an error message. Some days it is a little temperamental and that is why normally I get a backup phone message, if I have to be there earlier than normal.

Upon arrival there is heavy wet snow coming down and the local slope manager rushes up to me to tell me I did have an 8.30 lesson. My phone goes off while trying to jump into my ski boots with a call from the big boss and a voicemail regarding that booking as well… The fact that I was now half an hour behind schedule, meant that I had to extend my lessons into the towies/lifties lunch breaks for whom I normally cover, so they can have theirs! Thankfully the manager was able to help out making sure they all got a decent break.

Not only that, but when the 10am group lesson starts, I find out that there are 16 people booked in! Normally they allocate two instructors for such a large number, but my helper was already flat out doing private lessons all morning. “Ah, well, just do what you can”, I tell myself, knowing that the calmer I can keep myself, the better I will be able to deal with it. Group lessons are mixed with adults and children on this small beginners run and for that reason they normally only allow children of six and over in the lesson. Under that age they have not fully developed their finer motor skills and need a lot more hands on help with balancing, edging and putting ski’s on, which would consume too much of the instructors attention away from the adult participants. This morning somehow a five year old snuck in! It seemed that everything that could go wrong was happening! Yet, despite my grief and heavy workload, I knew that I could only cope by staying calm and fully focused on the task at hand.

After only fifteen minutes to eat half of my lunch and no time left to eat my usual mandarin for an extra energy boost, I got into the afternoon session. The snow thankfully got a little drier and less heavy. Half way through, another booking comes in for the last two hours of the day till 5pm, making this the longest day ever, with seven and a half hours teaching beginners in ski boots. As I walk ahead of my group of private lesson customers a tear rolls down my cheek forcing me to remove my goggles to wipe it away quickly. I am feeling exhausted and emotional and my feet seemed to have swollen well beyond where my boots allowed, giving me serious discomfort. How am I going to give them a good first lesson experience in this frame of mind? Focus and realize they may only be here for one day! Somehow I manage to hide my emotions and distract my mind from my worries…They had a good time, a great lesson and achieved a lot for a fairly un-athletic group to start with.

Sunset driving home

I got home just on dark, feeling exhausted yet happy for not giving in and feeling sorry for myself, but managing my feelings to benefit the customers of the past day. The result was that my day went a lot smoother than it would have, had I not done that. Of course I was still sad about the loss, but having achieved control over my emotions made me feel a whole lot happier. I even felt grateful about the amount of bookings, because it forced me to keep my mind off my own worries!

Next time you feel down and hard done by, think to yourself and ask if getting down and out about it all is helpful in any way, or is there another choice that makes you feel better?

Feel free to leave a comment below.

Mother’s Day and Forgiveness

While most people are celebrating Mother’s Day today, remembering all the good things mothers do and have done in their unconditional love for their children, I saw a post on Face Book by someone who did not share this experience. It was obvious that the mother in question had caused a great deal of pain and Mother’s Day reminded her of all this past hurt, rubbing salt in her wounds.

I felt for her as I saw some connections with her previous posts and looked for quite some time on google for the right article expressing the thoughts going through my mind to make her feel better. From years of research to find answers and solutions for my own (different) issues, I felt I may have some insights of interest to her, but failed to locate an article able to express everything I wanted to tell her.

Many years ago a Tibetan Buddhist Monk told me that they believe that stress creates poison arrows in the body. At that time I was going through a stressful period and did not understand the mechanics of this, however could see the negative results it had on my own health. In my quest for answers I read many articles based on scientific research and learned that the body produces very different chemicals in a state of stress than when feeling happy and in harmony. These chemicals cause indeed a lot of havoc from digestive problems to psychological disorders and can eventually even lead to terminal illness, if not corrected in time.

In my case most of my stress was caused by habits absorbed into my subconscious during my early childhood. How this exactly works is very well explained by Dr. Bruce Lipton, (https://www.brucelipton.com/about and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pJwYcK08iQ) for anyone wanting to understand the mechanics better. I absorbed these habits by observing my mother and yes I did blame her a bit for raising me into a stress filled person, until I looked at our family history in more detail.

She had been through a very stressful period in her own life not long before I came along. She was the sole caretaker of 3 elderly men, including my quadriplegic grandfather, after her mother passed away from a stroke at the age of 53. My grandmother also had been through a lot of difficulties during her short life.

Most people react from their subconscious the majority of time (research suggests 95%) and are unaware of the origins of most of their responses, because they relate to a part of their life that has very few conscious memories left! This is due to the fact that the mind works in a different state after the age of 6, compared to when a lot of these memories were made and “recorded” into the subconscious before that.

Understanding this, it becomes clear that my stress response habit was subconsciously “inherited” from at least 2 generations before me, if not more. Thankfully I also absorbed a lot of good habits, that show to me that subconscious habits are extremely important for functioning well overall.

I am grateful that nowadays access to this sort of information is so easy using the internet and that I found an understanding that there was really no one to blame for my predicament because the people that had passed it to me were in reality victims themselves! The good news is, I was able to break this chain by educating myself and work on changing my subconscious patterns.

Going back to the start, how can this post help the situation of the person suffering pain from the childhood memories? The understanding that this mother inadvertently may have been a victim herself, reacting unconsciously out of subconscious habits, can possibly transform her pain and grudge into compassion and forgiveness.

Pain and grudges cause stress resulting in disease, whereas compassion and forgiveness lead to health and happiness! Education, understanding and awareness are the key to healing the past! Maybe today is a good day to break the chain of past suffering and start healing?

Happy Mothers Day!

Flower Passion

In some of my previous posts I have hinted at my love of nature. Spending time outdoors is good for everyone, especially on a nice sunny day in Autumn. I am very grateful for the generous size garden around my home and love tending to it. So in this post I’d like to share my passion with you.

The chore of weeding has become a form of yoga as I am tiptoeing through the garden beds, stretching to reach that sprig of grass that self seeded from the neighbors yard through a crack in the fence. I have learned to be mindful of my body and move in beneficial ways that leave me feeling great afterwards.

There is not a lot of thinking involved in weeding and with the improved blood flow to the brain from bending over, inspiring ideas come in freely. I regularly walk outside, away from the computer, to have a play with the dog, appreciate the garden and find weeds and inspiration.

Hosta in flower

It is interesting to see how my garden has grown with me, from as easy as possible to maintain when I was working full time, with lots of natives to attract local birds and minimize watering, to the current state.

My vegie patch

Nowadays, working part time and having more days off, I have added a vegetable patch to save money and have a supply of fresh organic vegetables to pick from any time at my leisure. I also planted some small yellow Marigolds for a little color and pest control along the edge.

Fuchsia flowers

I have added a lot more flowering plants everywhere else as well, bringing the ones in pots into the house as a temporary indoor plant or craft cut ones into flower arrangements to brighten up the room.

I have started collecting a variety of Fuchsias, which have always been high up on my favorite list ever since loving the Fuchsia flower fairy in a childhood picture book the most.

Pansy baskets brightening up a shady area

The more flowers I see in my garden, the more I come to appreciate my own piece of nature surrounded by high fences for privacy. This is my own patch of paradise. There is something special about a flowering plant that highlights the impermanent nature of everything. Looking closely at a flower makes you appreciate it while it is in its full glory, before it will be gone in a day or so…

Cacti flowers only last one day

One of my smaller Cacti in flower

One of natures little miracles

Another collection I have kind of stumbled on is my Cacti range. Even though they are a little nasty to handle without gloves, the flowers are an absolute miracle of nature and just looking at them takes me on a fantasy journey. The centers of these flowers are like looking into a different universe. Imagine if you were seeing them from a bee’s perspective…

Every Summer I look forward to one or more of them displaying their magic, which does not happen every year and only for one day! One of the varieties I have yet to see flower, decided to time it right on a day we were not home, so I will be keeping a close eye on that one for the next few years to get a photograph of it too.

Succulent in flower

Yes, looking around my garden, seeing the beauty of nature, it is rather easy to be Glad about life while appreciating the flowers I have allowed to blossom in my little patch of Paradise!

What is your favorite flower?

How I had fun hanging out the washing today

Last night I felt a bit down for about half an hour due to late nights, early mornings and hard work in between and thought to myself better to practice what I “preach” today. I was hanging out the washing in a bit of an improved mood already, because I had a better night sleep and it simply was a gorgeous day to be out there with the sun shining happily upon our back yard and a stiff sea breeze keeping things very pleasant.

That does not include hanging out the washing on a hoist! I was struggling to put the pegs in the right spot while hanging onto the lines for dear life in an attempt to keep it still for long enough to accomplish that. The large towels I put up from the load before were catching a lot of wind and made the hoist turn like a chairoplane! That was it! I had enough!

I gave up my resistance and decided to go with the flow and use my Glad Game. I stopped for a brief moment and looked around the garden, said thanks for the beautiful day, looked in appreciation at all the beautiful flowers beaming smiles at me and proposed a little game in my mind. If thoughts really create reality, prove this to me again and stop the wind for long enough to peg down my next item in a perfect spot for it.

Next I grabbed a piece of clothing and stepped back from the laundry basket. I looked up and to my amazement found a perfect empty spot of line and sufficient time to do the pegging in comfort! I giggled to myself saying: ” yea right, that was just a coincidence!” I tried again, same thing, grab the first item on top, step back, looked up and found another moment like the one before! Now I was giggling even louder! Ok, This is a really fun game! It kept going till the basket was empty!

Not only did I get my task done in no time, I also had a ball doing it! The feeling of lightheartedness stayed with me until now! I am normally not a fan of chores, but they need to be taken care of and you may as well have fun, go with the flow and see what happens playing the Glad Game while you are at it! Where can you use the Glad Game? Feel free to share in the comments below.

The Lady in the Supermarket continued…

Yesterday, I put off going to the supermarket, for only a handful of groceries, again! I needed to take the dog for a walk as well, but for some reason I had a gut feeling that I should take the car and do the lazy “stop at the park on the way home walk”. Lucky I did, because after gathering my items and finding the shortest queue, I found myself lined up again (déjà vu) behind the lady from my previous story! I had not seen her since I wrote the story a few months back!

After a few moments of fear and hesitation, I found the courage to tell her about the story I wrote about our previous encounter. She gave me a puzzled look and asked why I wrote a story about her. I replied that I thought it was worth sharing, because it could make people happier. Next, I asked her if she had access to a computer, so she could have a look at it. She told me her daughter could help her, so I asked the attendant for a pen and some scrap paper to write my blog address down for the lady. I must admit that I stumbled a bit trying to remember how to actually write it on paper with the “http” and appropriate amount of dots and slashes. So I added “Word Press Blog” and wrote “story about ‘the ladies name'” followed by the title of the story, hoping that would be enough information for the daughter to locate it on the web.

I could tell she was still surprised and had quite a few questions as to my motive and what was so special about her that I had written a story about it. I assured her it was all good and that she should check it out to get the answers. I felt really good about the fact that I could return the good feelings and was hoping the story made her feel as good as what she had done to me on our previous encounter. As I walked out, I again felt the same way I did last time!

Thinking about this on the way home, I drove straight past the park and had to turn around to take the dog for his anticipated run! Poor boy, I was so happy, I could not wait to get home to write this down, because to me it felt like things “fell” into place, because I had thought about how nice it would be for her to read it as I published it last week! I am glad I acted on my gut feeling!

Introduction to Happy Pollyesther

Before I start, I want you to know that I am glad you have taken the time to come here and welcome you reading my blog! It has taken decades of thinking, research and getting clarity, before I was ready to start writing my stories, but finally feel ready to take the plunge and be the change I wish to see in the world.

My real name is Esther and “Pollyesther” is a nickname first uttered by a close friend on a hiking trip about 15 years ago. He came to it after watching me bring out nut bars all the time when I felt a bit hungry, to combat low blood sugar, jokingly asking if “Polly wants a cracker?” At the time I did not enjoy being called Pollyesther as it gave me a negative feeling thinking about the cheap, synthetic, environmentally unfriendly material. Natural materials like silk, cotton and wool feel so much better, so thankfully it did not stick in my circle of friends at the time.

So why on earth did I resurrect it now? The reason is that things now look a lot different than back in those days and it has taken on a whole different meaning for me that becomes clearer when reading on.

It all started many years back when I held a job that felt like it was sucking the life out of me. I felt trapped and depressed. As a result I started having health problems. I resolved not to continue on this path, which led me on a decades long quest of finding health, happiness and meaning in my life. Sometimes the information I found was useful, sometimes confusing and even overwhelming. There is so much information available in the “self help, spiritual and religious” sectors, that it is hard to see the trees from the forest most of the time.

The one thing that has been clear to me for most of my life, was my strong desire to help others find happiness and make the world a better place for everyone. The research helped me realise that most people (me included) make it far too complicated with thousands of processes to achieve happiness to choose from. Not even starting on all the confusing and negative input from different media in our lives, that tends to bring us back to “reality”.

Recently, my attention was drawn to the old story of Pollyanna, an orphan, who is send to live with her grumpy aunt, who is stuck in her way and full of resentment. At first, her aunt is not impressed with her duty of looking after this unusual girl, but slowly over time warms to her positive attitude and in turn becomes more positive herself!

Pollyanna’s method to being happy is playing the “glad game”, in which she tries to find as many things as possible to be glad about. With this game she manages to cheer up even the most stubborn, grumpy people she comes across. Feel free to look for it on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Pollyanna-Eleanor-H-Porter/dp/1439297290/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1462364852&sr=1-1&keywords=pollyanna+eleanor+porter. Of course this is a fictional story and “real” life is what you and I have to deal with every day. So why is this story so significant?

A few years back my research led me to the discovery of our personal influence on the reality we experience through our words and thoughts that result in feelings and emotions. These appear to reach far beyond our own body and influence circumstances, affecting us and others in return. I don’t want to go into explaining about the how’s and why’s as many others out there have excellent material on this for anyone looking to find out more.

We are all familiar with the days where nothing seems to go right for us, for example starting with stubbing your toe getting out of bed, spilling your coffee limping around the kitchen and as a result leaving too late for work to find a traffic jam on your way there as well! Your grumpy boss only adds to the load etc.

What if we had played the “glad game” after spilling our coffee? Maybe we have avoided being in the accident that caused the traffic jam, due to the delay, and arrived at work in one piece? Would our day have been different?

My studies and life experiences have convinced me to answer this question with a resounding YES!

This blog intends to keep it simple and uplift you by sharing real stories about my own everyday life, where I see the results of the “Glad Game” in action. Allow me to be your “Pollyanna” and LET’S PLAY!

With gratitude,
Pollyesther