Vicki Clubley-Moore - Blog

Meandering Experience

28/2/2018

February is a funny old month for me. It always has been. I spend a lot of January planning how I'd like my year to look, where I would like to go, what I'd like to do. And then in February we are in it, the year is steaming ahead. And that short little month of February flies by. Tomorrow it is March!!!!

It's funny because February is only 2 or 3 days shorter than the other months and yet it seems to make a difference to how quickly it passes. Perhaps it is because I'm not ever really ready by the end of January for the year to be underway. Perhaps it is because a lot happens - Valentine's Day, birthdays, pancake day, lent... A lot for a small month.
This year I have also been poorly for 2 weeks of the month. We have had to cancel things and miss seeing people. The children have all been poorly too so in some ways it's been ok - we have hibernated under blankets and read stories and watched movies. And I keep reminding myself that this too shall pass.
I guess it's sort of all of those things and more that has made February fly by.

I'm ready for March now. Ready for spring, warmth, outside-ness coming back into our lives in a bigger and bigger way. We are thinking of adding a dog to our family this year. It's not a decision we have completely made yet but we shall see. I like the idea of having to go outside everyday in all seasons. I saw people on our street walking dogs in the snow today.

Life is all a big adventure and one day we won't be here to enjoy it any more so my goal for March is to remind myself of what is important to me, to connect with my husband and children and enjoy life. How does that saying go?
One life. Live it.

Super blue blood moon

31/1/2018

I saw something today that hasn't been seen in over 150 years. Pretty cool eh? Did you...?

Today's Super Blue Blood moon was incredible. But what does that even mean?!!

So it was a Super moon because it's the closest to Earth that it gets in its elliptical orbit - the moon doesn't stay the same distance away from Earth.

It was a Blue moon because it was the second full moon of the calendar month. These don't happen often either, hence the phrase "once in a blue moon".

It was a Blood moon because of the alignment of the Earth between the sun and the moon - like this 🌞🌍🌕 And that means that tonight the moon will be red in some parts of the world.

I got to play hide and seek with the moon during my run, I wanted to see the moon as much as possible but the moon seemed to have other ideas! It kept disappearing behind houses and trees!!

I stopped at the end of my run to catch a picture of myself with the incredible moon as a reminder. And then the children decided they wanted to see it too so off we went for a post prandial stroll in the moon light. Delightful!!

Changing the story one thought at a time

31/12/2017

I love blogging. The art of expressing myself in such a way as to help other people on their journey. I don't always hold that intention highly - sometimes I just feel like writing!!

I stumbled across this mantra this year -

Lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu

I find mantra chanting very soothing and meditative. I particularly love the meaning of this one though...

May all beings everywhere be happy and free and may my thoughts, words and actions contribute in some way to that happiness and freedom for all.

It tickles me that such a succinct mantra needs so many words to translate the Sanskrit into English. Mostly though I love the sentiment. The idea that how I choose to think, speak and act reflects on everyone else's wellbeing is as exhilarating as it is terrifying.

I mean, how awesome that I am so powerful. But also eek!!! I am THAT powerful.

I have a quote on my wall which says

"Watch your thoughts, they create your words. Watch your words, they create your actions."

And so the start of it all is our thoughts.... How crazy is that? What we think can change the world for the better... Since I learnt this I have been exploring changing my habitual thought patterns.

As an example there was a long time when I would say "things will be better when..." The thought behind that was always dissatisfaction with where I was. I've realised that things improve much quicker when I look for the good things RIGHT NOW. Having a dedicated gratitude practice has helped me release that thought pattern. Life is good right now AND I can also believe that...

Every day in every way I am getting better and better.

I've really found affirmations useful for changing my thoughts. As I find thought patterns that are no longer serving me I research the belief I do want and find affirmations that support the way I do want to think. It has been a very useful process in changing the story I tell myself.

I recently drafted out a mini e course to help us change our thinking around body image. It is based on Louise Hay's affirmations around being overweight. I designed it to help us see our bodies in a more positive light. It includes a video with some tapping and some journalling. I will be launching it in January when I work out how best to host it! It is free so let me know if you are interested in playing along... 💝🌟🌻

One of the first affirmations to use if you want to change your thinking in any way is...

It is only a thought and a thought can be changed.

And that is our greatest power.

I want to acknowledge Louise Hay's incredible, inspiring work. Most of the affirmations I use are inspired by Louise's work.

What a difference one little word can make to a life....

27/11/2017

I have been on a transformative journey for a while now. Years ago I realised that my New Years resolutions were all about beating myself up - a long list of all the things I wanted to change about myself and my life - the main two were always earn more money, and be more healthy. Because I wasn't happy with where I was. One year, after reading back and realising how I had come to another new year still wishing the same things would change, I decided to come up with some new resolutions. I felt stuck so I decided that year would be the year I would

Do new things.
Meet new people.
See new places.

The word 'new' became my mantra - if something was new it sparked off a reminder of my New Years resolutions and I pushed myself to try cross country skiing and all sorts of other adventures that year. However it came to the next year and my resolutions fell back into the old pattern again - loose weight, do more exercise, earn more money...

A few years later I was facing a year travelling abroad and realised that I was unlikely to loose weight or earn more money whilst travelling so my resolution that year was

Laugh

And so began my journey with a word for the year. While I was in Australia I discovered that this was actually a thing - other people were doing this too. I got intentional and focused and ever since then I have been choosing one word as a guide.

Towards the end of the year I journal around where I am and where I want to be and various words rise up into my attention and I try them out. By the start of the new year I have settled on a word and I journal around what I'm hoping that word will bring into my life. There are often years when I struggle to decide on a word. Over the years I've been doing this for myself and helping others to find their guiding word for the year I've realised that a number of words have good things in store for me and I cannot choose wrong, as long as I choose.

This year my word has blown my mind. I chose

nourish

This year has involved some big healing physically and mentally. I am a stronger woman than I was at the start of the year. I smile more, play with my children more easily, I run and jump and dance and sing because I am learning how to fill my cup.

I want to share this idea with everyone! Choose your word! Run with it. Have fun with it. I ran some workshops over the New Year period last year and I'm doing so again this year. Places are already filling up which is so exciting!

If you would like to experience your own word of the year and would enjoy getting clear with a group of likeminded women the dates for the 2018 word of the year workshops are Friday 29th December and Saturday 6th January. They are held at my home in Ruscombe from 2-5pm and are £25.
For more information and to book your place please email me on

vickiclubleymoore @ iCloud.com

(remove the spaces) or phone/text me on 07811982402.

I look forward to welcoming you at my next workshop to help guide you to your own innate wisdom. xx

Love thy neighbour...

30/9/2017

I'm really lucky to live in a friendly neighbourhood. The people in our street can be seen chatting on door steps, going in and out of each other's houses, sharing tools. And I am so grateful that we have been included into that so beautifully.

You know "love your neighbour" has a second part to it which is a gauntlet for us today in our society that tells us we are not good enough or deserving enough.

"Love your neighbour as you love yourself".

How are you at loving yourself? It's not something I am very good at. I am getting better at it though. Over the last few years I have spent more time meditating and journaling and I have noticed that my inner monologue is very negative. The way I see it, if I don't learn to love and accept myself how can I really love and accept anyone else?

So I have been working hard for a while now to listen to the stories I am telling myself and to change them if they are negative. I shared a story I heard myself saying over and over recently on a Facebook live session I did.

I'm stuck.
I don't deserve good things.
I'm fat and lazy.
It's too hard.
I can't do it.
I'm rubbish.

It was stopping me from serving others. I've been given a huge gift of a slim, healthy body and vibrant energy. I'm so excited to share the strategy I used to get there with the world so that other busy Mum's can feed their bodies top quality nutrition easily too but that story was stopping me.

Telling myself that negative story was stopping me from loving myself AND stopping me from loving my neighbour because I was hiding. I can't serve other people if I keep myself small and hidden.

So I wrote a new story.

I'm changing at a rate of knots.
I deserve happiness and success.
I'm slim, healthy and proactive.
I have all the time I need.
I can tap into my intuition to say what needs to be said.
I can handle it.
I'm good at this.
I can do it.

Because that story is true. I can handle it. I can choose to be proactive. Every moment we have a choice of how we react to the situation in front of us. We can choose how we show up in the world. I have that story up in my bathroom to read when ever I go to the toilet and in the kitchen to read while I am making a cup of tea. Repetition is key here. I have probably told myself the negative stuff a thousand times so it is important to hear the positive story repeatedly to help me think differently.

Tony Robbins says to have a breakthrough we need 3 things:

3. A strategy
2. A new story
1. Change our state

The strategy is important but if we don't change our story we will just come up with reasons the strategy didn't work for us. I will talk about changing our state in another blog post as it is a beyond the scope of this blog post.

So the challenge is to 'love your neighbour as you love yourself'. Are you ready to change your story so you can love yourself and others more deeply? Peace begins with each one of us being at peace with ourselves. I'm a work in progress and I have a long way to go but each step is progress.

Learning Something New

25/9/2017

My mind is full to the brim at the moment with learning new things and fitting in that with 3 energetic boys!

Yesterday I took a few hours out of everything I have been focused on recently, including parenting. A few friends and I took part in a Mama's Art Retreat run by the fabulous Helen Jackson of www.imperfectlynaturalmama.blogspot.co.uk

It was so revitalising to take time away from everything I've been burying myself in recently, to step back and do something different. I'm particularly grateful to my wonderful, supportive husband who looked after our children and a friend's daughter so we could both go.

It was a small, intimate retreat run by Helen. I've participated in a few of her retreats now and this time we focused mostly on watercolour techniques and mixed media. The paintings became a message for each of us when towards the end we added our chosen symbols and a word.

I'm a big fan of guiding words as you probably know by now! I have a word every year that guides me (instead of New Years Resolutions) and I also have three touchstone words that are my constant companions. When I do things like this it is usually those words that show up for me. Not this time.

At the end of each year I think about a few different words and how they might fit for me in the coming year. This year my word is 'nourish'. At the start of this year I was broken inside. One of the words I wanted to choose included thrive but I felt like I was too far away from thriving and that it would be more like a stick than a carrot! I sat quietly and asked myself what I needed to thrive and the answer came up that I needed to nourish myself. It is incredible the journey I have had with nourish so far and it certainly was exactly what I needed to guide me this year.

However, nourish was not the word that came up for me yesterday.

The symbol I set my heart on was a dragonfly. I love dragonflies, they are so beautiful, light and agile and they are a symbol of luck too so it seemed like a good symbol to draw on my beautiful watercolour background. It was a challenge to draw something so detailed and then to paint it using the 'negative space' concept that Helen taught us was even trickier! Yet with time, patience and some helpful guidance from Helen I feel I managed a pretty good dragonfly-ish shape!

Now for the word

fly

(My internal monologue:
"No, you can't fly yet. You haven't learnt enough and you don't do enough. You still have a long way to go before you are making a difference so you can't count that as flying. Choose something smaller.")

I'm learning to ignore that kind of dialogue, day by day. It's there constantly but there is another, quieter, gentler voice that I can hear too now.

And when she sees the word fly she says

"YES!"

2 years on...

25/8/2017

It's hard to believe Mum died 2 years ago. How can it be that strong, vibrant, energetic woman left her body behind 2 years ago?

This morning I read the blog I wrote this time last year. I was in the thick of raw emotions last year. I had no idea how to handle what I felt. Since then I have had counselling and just the short burst that the NHS provides with Talking Therapies was incredible. I am so grateful to live in a country where even our mental health is looked after. And of course 8 sessions wasn't really enough to fully heal the complex, deep emotional rift I was suffering in but it absolutely helped.

At some point I know I will probably need to organise myself some more counselling to finish unraveling the messy knots I had tied myself into over Mum's death but for now I have made enough progress to operate in the world again, to mostly be the happy, smiling, energetic and positive person I was before. And the bits of time when I'm not that person remind me that I've still got bits to heal and work on.

And today I remind myself that I've come so far. I've made so much progress.

I miss my Mum so much but also not at all. How can you miss someone who hasn't really left? Mum is here so often - in the sunflowers I see everywhere. In the tiny toad and frogs that visited us during our picnic today at Cliveden where Mum's ashes are scattered. In my voice when I parent my children. In Bob Marley's voice as it drifts on summer sun beams.

I miss her. I still grieve the loss of her. And as my little sister shared Nat King Cole singing on Facebook this morning:

"Smile and maybe tomorrow, you'll find that life is still worthwhile, if you just smile"

It's been a long road to get here. I've still go a long way to go. But it turns out that life is still worthwhile.

Overwhelm and Perspective

18/8/2017

Tonight I am feeling overwhelmed. It's quite a common feeling for me at the moment and it has slowed me down considerably.

I feel incredible. I have so much energy and I have dropped 2 dress sizes. I am so blown away by the results I am having on this nutritional cleansing system that I want to share it with the world.

I love my children. They are beautiful souls, empathetic and passionate and spirited and alive. I am committed to making well researched choices for my family at each step of the way and for right now the best choice for my family is to home educate.

I love my husband. Every day I make a choice to commit to sharing my life with him and I want to help him to be the best version of himself, the same as he encourages me to grow and evolve myself. So I am supporting him in providing his climbing services to our little corner of the world.

We are managing on a small income and are gratefully supported by the government at the moment. So I am managing our money closely to ensure we can pay our rent and bills on time with grace and gratitude and balancing that with actually living a life.

And so I feel like I am juggling so many different balls really unsuccessfully at the moment. Any time I focus my eyes on to one ball to make positive changes it feels like the other balls come crashing down around me.

I throw them all erratically into the air, none of them go how I want them to go: family, business, money, marriage, children, home education, friends, healing myself.... It's great having goals but how do I get where I want to go? How do I create balance in my life so that all areas feel like they are moving towards where I want to be?

And where do I want to be?

I'd like to share this incredible nutritional cleanse and business opportunity that I have with the people I care about and onwards into the world. I'd like to help others people feel better in their bodies like I do now.

And I would like to grow my family's finances so that we can be contributing members of society. I am so aware of how fortunate we are to live in a country that supports families on low incomes. I cannot express just how grateful I am for the safety nets that have caught us during the most challenging financial period of our lives. I am ready to leave that behind now, to earn and contribute in a bigger way. I am ready to contribute to our finances by providing value to the world. I am ready to pay all our obligations joyfully with ease and grace.

I am ready to show up, help people to find the right solution for their lives and to achieve their goals.

I am ready to make our home life more joyful and peaceful and to feel more motivated around our home ed adventures.

I want to be a better wife and a better home maker so my husband needs to do less chores and has more time to himself.

I want more time to myself.

At a parent support group I've been going to we start with a time to meditate to a beautiful song. One of the lines is:

"This is it."

Because this is it. This moment now is always the only moment we have. So I guess what I need to be asking myself is how can I make this moment count? How can I move towards one of those goals right now? What about you? What are your goals right now? How can you move toward your goals today?

Time to change that old story

23/7/2017

That photo was taken in 2011. W was not much older than T is now! It is incredible how time passes and things change.

I'm still loving this free 365 daily growth program and today's lesson was fascinating. Well, the results of the exercise were anyway. It is what made me dig out an old photo, the photos on my computer only go back 7 years because that is when I got my computer!

Anyway the lesson today was around the stories we have been telling ourselves for a long time. The exercise was to look at a negative story we have been telling over and over and to pull out the lessons we have learnt from that experience.

This is what I wrote:

Ok so as a younger person I didn't always behave in a way that is congruent with how I am now. The realisation is that I can stop beating myself up about that.

Louise Hay says "when you know better you do better".

If I hadn't behaved like that I would not have learnt valuable lessons about myself.

I learnt that I was looking for validation and love from outside myself.

I learnt what my love language is.

I learnt that the choices I make can have repercussions on my relationships with more than just the people directly involved.

I learnt that only I can fill the gaping hole I felt inside me.

I learnt that I can fill that hole by being clear on who I am and what nourishes me.

I learnt that stuffing the emotions down does not make them go away. I have to face up to each emotion and feel it in order to let it go.

I learnt that creativity, exercise, good deeds, spirituality, meditation and tapping help process powerful emotions quicker.

I learnt that being kind to myself works better than being cross with myself. The same goes for other people.

I learnt that forgiveness is a powerful tool. And the willingness to forgive is the first step on the long road to forgiveness and healing.

Wow. I hadn't realised just how many powerful lessons I learnt from something I have been so angry at myself for. Time to change that story.

Thank you for witnessing this. I'm feeling very grateful for today's exercises and the lessons it contained for me.

If you fancy joining in send me your email address. It's free and easy 😍

Thank You

18/7/2017

Yey!! It's gratitude day!!!

So today's step in my 365 day challenge is to shower everyone and everything with gratitude. It is such a simple but powerful lesson.

Here is today's entry into the course journal:

I love gratitude. It is something that is free to give and can have such a powerful and profound effect on my life as well as the lives of those I express gratitude to.

365 days of growth! I'm so loving this program. Shout if you'd like me to invite you to join so we can see each other's progress. It isn't compulsory to share your journal on the site or on a blog either by the way!!!

I've had such an awesome day today and I'm pretty sure the extra focus on gratitude has helped. 😍❤️