Breathing Life - Joshua Roy's Blog

There once was a man who walked into a doctors surgery. The doctor asked him, “what seems to be the problem?” The man replied, “no one listens to me, it’s like I’ not even here”. The doctor shouted toward the hallway, “NEXT”. Some feel like they just don’t matter, yet others seem to live in the spotlight. It is as if they are on a joyous adventure in which they, the main character enjoy all the rich abundance of life. Opportunities seem to find them and things seem to fall into their lap. Some even fall into the trap of believing that they are indispensable. The poet wrote these words about the indispensable man. Sometimes when you’re feeling important, when your ego is in elegant bloom, when you naturally take it for granted that you are the best in the room, when you feel that your sudden departure would leave an unfillable hole, just follow this simple example and see how it humbles your soul. Take a bucket and fill it with water. Put your hand in up to your wrist. Remove it, and the hole remaining is a measure of how you,ll be missed. You can splash all you…

One of the most difficult and humbling things we face as human beings is to gain victory in the arena of career, whilst failing in the area of relationships.  In other words to win and succeed in one area of life at the expense of another area of life.  I have succeeded in my own mind, and yet have failed in the mind of someone whom I love.  Someone who’s opinion I value immensely.  There have been times when I feel like I have done something really great work, and yet my beautiful wife has a great talent of dragging my head down from ‘its lofty and prideful cloud’, and back to earth.  It is with simple, yet loving correction she teaches and shows me how much work there is yet to do.    It seems to be just at that moment when I expect praise for “all that I had done”, instead I feel unappreciated, and deflated.  Whatever the negative feeling is, the natural part of me associates these negative feelings to my wife and replay the scene over and over in the mind. With constant replaying it leads to resentment or upset. The unfulfilled expectation was that I wanted her to be grateful for…

I would like to share an analogy about the great ships of the ancient world. When sails are used effectively and the helm used appropriately the captain of a ship is able to charter a course. A sailing ship, without sails is nothing more than a floating raft.  The sailing ships that does not use, or cannot use its sails will drift. We also know that ships use anchors to lock themselves to the ocean floor, steady their position and to eliminate drift. When the anchor is deployed, the ship becomes  steady, immovable and steadfast.   An anchor is also a word that has been applied to NLP, and refers to the programming of emotional states.  Anchoring is a technique that allows one to experience a feeling or emotion again at will, even after that feeling has left the body. There are many ways of recreating a vivid past emotion, and bringing that emotion back into the body.  Anchoring is perhaps the easiest way to perform this processes. Whilst this is a very simple technique, the perfecting of it can and will take a lifetime.   For example, Anthony Robbins spends four days teaching and setting up a number of…

There are three resistors to mental effectiveness. They are fear, laziness and limited self-belief.   I wanted to write a little about fear. In particular the fear of failure. Fear can be good or bad depending on the context.  Fear can keep us safe, but fear can also prevent us from achieving our potential.   Fear of failure in business can cause one to shy away from making an attempt, taking risks, or having a go. Failure can lead to financial setbacks, or great loss such as foreclosure, or bankruptcy. Many people have started businesses, only to go out of business.  Fear stops people from taking out a loan to grow the business, spending money on advertising or employing staff. Fear can and will keep you from getting started, and fear can also keep the business small.   Fear of failure in relationships may prevent us from being open to the possibility of a relationship.  Those in a relationship may find that they unconsciously self-sabotage that relationship, or reject the other person first, for fear that they themselves will be rejected.  Failure to meet our responsibilities in a relationship may likewise be costly. If we neglect our relationship in the pursuit…

I heard a magnificent talk that really caused me to reflect on my own family. It caused me to consider just how important, deserving and wonderful my own children are.  Often my career aspirations, goals, ambition, and other interests demand my attention and focus.  At the same time I know that my immediate family relationships, my wife and children should be central in our lives, and must receive attention and focus.   The reason I say this is that money will come and go. Often work colleagues come and go. Success in work, or ability to make lots of money will satisfy in the short term, yet I know that long term fulfilment is best when there is someone to share it with. My goal is to have a fantastic and rewarding career, to have a strong and healthy body, and to have an empowering mission and purpose in life, whilst maintaining a strong and happy home.  I do not want to achieve success in career, to the detriment of my family.  One wise man said, “No success in life can compensate for failure in the home”.   Climbing the corporate ladder, and spending more time at work, and even…

I had a brilliant student in one of my workshops state that there are only 3 ways to use time.  He said that we can sell our time, invest our time or waste our time. As I have thought about this comment, and looked back on my life I realise that I have wasted so much time.  In fact even when I was selling my time and investing my time, at the core often I was wasting my time. The biggest reason for this is my reluctance, or resistance to planning.  Planning takes time.  Planning takes mental focus and energy. Planning is a vital part of all success, and it is a principle that successful people understand and live.  Planning is not only goal setting. It’s not only about the big picture. It is about all the small details. It is about the moments in our lives, and making those small moments count. Whilst I understand the importance of planning, often I feel like it is a waste of time because I am so focussed on taking action.  However planning is an important aspect of ‘sharpening the saw’. My brother in law and I were using an electric chainsaw that was…

I had a conversation with my wife yesterday in which she described to me a friend that she has who is suffering with the effects of depression. She told me that her friend stated that she was standing in the kitchen when she suddenly felt negative chemicals release in her brain, followed by a flood of negative thoughts and feelings. She described how real these negative thoughts and feelings are, and how real the chemicals are.  Furthermore it was the chemicals that started the whole process. If it was not for that negative chemical release she would feel different, and even happy. As my wife told me this story I reflected on the experience which the last year of my life has given.  The last year of my life has been a positive and happy year for me and I thought about what had made it so.  I also thought about the stark contrast in my experience of life, compared with someone who suffers from depression.  This is a sensitive topic and I will therefore speak about it from my experience. I have suffered depression. I went through a divorce many years ago and I felt deeply the failure and…

I have been thinking recently of something I once heard from a religious leader by the name of Gordon Hinkley say. I’ve tried to look up this quote on the internet, yet have been unable to find it. My memory is excellent and it was such a bold statement that I committed it to memory straight away. The comment is this, “if every man and every woman would do everything they could to look after the needs of his or her companion, there would be very little, if any divorce”. I have thought about this quote a great deal over the past several months. Since the establishment of AccessWorldSeminars my focus has not been on my relationship as my number 1 priority. I certainly have not been doing all I could to ensure that the needs of my wife are being met. The first thing I needed to do, was uncover the needs of Rebecca my wife. I began to studying the needs of a woman, and the needs of a man. As I studied I found conflicting opinions, yet I soon discovered some needs that actually work in almost all situations, and with almost all women. These are fundamental…

I have been contemplating a course of behaviour that is not sitting well with me. I can pretend the situation does not exist and yet In The final analysis it is a real situation and it does exist.  Insurance fraud is a concern in our country and making false claims is against the law.  On the other side of the argument is the practices that exists with insurance companies, and their assessment processes.  As I converse with others it is evident that having a claim make it all the way through the claims process can be a nightmare. There is often technical differences from the insurance company itself.  For example one man stated that he took out insurance on a new car and paid this extra cost for peace of mind.   Within 3 months some major things happened that led to a fault within the engine of the car.  He then contacted his insurance and they refused to help.  He expressed to me that insurance gave him false peace of mind, and yet he has discovered now that the insurance he took out had no value for that situation.  He expressed to me that he is currently going through…

Life can be emotionally challenging at times.  It can be hard to enjoy life when we feel like we have failed, or we feel like we let ourselves and others down.  One way to mitigate failure is to take fewer risks, or to take smaller risks.  One way to achieve this is by not trying.  Another way is to shrink and become insignificant. When you have failed at something that you did not put much effort into, the failure seems to be not so bad.  The failure is half expected.  Limited emotional investment, is the unconscious minds natural built in protection against negative emotions.  When things are not going well, we will find a way to protect ourselves from intense negative emotions.  After all, the build up of these intense negative emotions can lead to depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions.  Our unconscious mind knows this and wants to help is.  This is achieved by shutting down the feeling component of our nature. The issue with the is that by shutting down our emotions and eliminating these negative feelings, our positive feelings are also affected. One woman described her experience of life was like being a ‘zombi’.  She told…