Welcome to Healing From Within with your host Sheryl Glick author of her newest book in a trilogy A New Life Awaits Spirit Guided Insights to Support Global Awakening which shares stories and messages from Spirit that show us our modern day challenges are not economic political societal but a disconnect from our inner true being spiritual soul wisdom. Sheryl is delighted to welcome musician Bob Hillary, author of Simplify who shares his decision to reject our modern way of living after it made him seriously ill and to return to nature and a simpler lifestyle.
As listeners of” Healing From Within” are well aware, Sheryl and her guests share intimate stories and insights into the metaphysical world of energy science, spirituality and modern day life as we discuss the duality and nature of both spiritual and physical life challenges. In order to create or manifest our best version of yourself and live a prosperous, healthy and happy life we must merge our spiritual awareness with physical ego -based thinking and create opportunities for self-investigation and self-mastery of our emotions which is only possible by an introspective look at self.
In today’s episode of “Healing From Within” Bob Hillary shares a manual for switching off your digital lifestyle, detaching from all your stuff and finding a peaceful, stable and happy way of being. He provides 21 practices to help you simply life so stress is reduced and healing can begin.-
When Bob is asked to think back to their childhood and remember a person place event that may have shown them or others the lifestyle and interests they might embrace as an adult for Sheryl feels the life plan or destiny of each soul is there at the beginning only waiting to be discovered and lived out by the person and Bob tells us that as a child his absolute idol was the famous explorer Sir Edmund Hillary a relative of his and the first man to climb the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest. His story always inspired Bob to aim high, live wild and not settle for normal in my life. Bob was brought up on a rural organic farm. His reality was pretty much roaming endlessly in nature, making dens and mud pies. So you could say that Bob grew up with this simple thing—it’s in his roots. And Bob tells us he is very grateful to have grown up that way. Bob tells us of his grandmother Annabelle who he adored who taught him all about growing our own food. She was something of an expert. Her garden was immense: chock full of edible vegetable delights. My parents also grew our own food on the farm which we children would pick fresh from the garden for dinner. These early experiences went in deep and gave me a good grounding in life. Twenty years on, living in a technology-dominated culture, Bob found himself increasingly revisiting these experiences and enjoying the sanity, peace and clarity of living simply.
Bob tells us why he decided to share his story with the public in his book Simplify. And the most important self- aware factor that came out of this book.
Bob tells us that this book is for anybody who is disillusioned and looking for answers in a world that seems to offer none. Where always on mass smartphone addiction and social isolation seem to be the order of the day. We are all feeling the strain. Why does the strain even need to be there? Could there be another way to live? A simpler way? The ever- faster pace of life shows no sign of stopping. The signs of an unhappy groaning planet struggling to support our endless need for more, more, more are becoming increasingly obvious. We are currently losing 150 species from our animal and plant kingdom EVERYDAY not to mention huge problems like the melting ice caps, plastic-filled oceans and over-population. The great paradox of these times is that many of us are increasingly seeing and feeling that this way of living really isn’t serving us or the planet. We may be unsure of how to go forward. We would like to live in slower simpler truer more balanced ways revolving less around the virtual world and more around the real world. We would like to live saner, healthier, better, happier lives in community and connected to actual physical people rather than their virtual versions. We are being called to do this…Think of the overuse of plastics, our endless consumption, dominant and domineering governments, stress levels being at an all time high. It is time to listen to the cries of the Earth and to change. Basically, we don’t have much time left on this planet if we don’t. It is time to step up and change.
Bob tells us of his own awakening and his own story and what guided him to find peace and health by living a new way.
Bob writes, “I have spent 15 years unhooking my life from the more negative aspects of our modern society. I have explored living off-grid without a phone or TV spending time outside the matrix and reconnecting with the land. I have found that what society tells us we need to have in our lives we really don’t need at all. So five years ago, I decided to up sticks and go and explore living off-grid. In the Welsh mountains. In a field. In a yurt. I reached a point in my life where I had had enough. I woke up—in my high rent endless utility bills work for the man-taxes -paying routine—and something just snapped. I remembered my childhood and a voice deep within me said, loudly, go look for another way. So, I did. I bought a small, very cheap piece of rural land in the hills of Wales and my wife and I moved onto it. I gave away most of my possessions—ALL of the clutter I’d been dragging from rented house to rented house for years—I stopped paying taxes, bills and rent and started living from the land. Mainly I learned to connect with the land and the medicine that it carries. It was epic. We spent two years living on that land and learned a lot. We learned to live with very little. It was tough but it was beautiful. And most of all it was illuminating. It showed me clearly what society looks like from the outside. I saw how we are all living under a dense blanket of Wi-Fi and we were trapped in a system that seems to amplify anxiety, fear and panic. I saw how things like mortgages and even technology trap us and how we often can’t see the way out.
After about two years of living off the grid I brought the medicine that I’d picked up on that land and brought it back to society. I was beginning to miss people. I felt like I had learned what I needed to. We moved into an actual house using solar panels on my roof and built a big wood burner and grew our own food in the garden. I now get about 40 percent of what I eat from my own garden. Now I travel and live as a singer-songwriter singing about what I learned in my time-off-grid and trying to help others find their own way out of the matrix. I also wrote this book as proof that there is another way. I learned to live more simply and become something like an “Earth Warrior. I healed my mind of fear and replaced it with love. I found a power that I had not been taught about at school lying deep within the earth. A power that spoke to my soul, and which healed me. I learned how to tap into it. And this power is something that is still with me teaching me every day.
It is clear to me that the times we are heading into are calling loudly for us All to become Earth Loving individuals—Earth Warriors—honoring our planet and taking responsibility for its welfare.
Bob goes on to tell us what an Earth Warrior is. An Earth Warrior lets go of all the things in life that were limiting them, keeping them small and powerless and tying them into a system that they often didn’t agree with. An Earth Warrior is basically someone who cares about the Earth, their own priorities and who strives to live life with integrity and authenticity. It’s someone who doesn’t overconsume. Someone who is responsible with their life choices, especially those that impact the environment. Who lives life consciously rather than following the norm. And most importantly, an Earth Warrior wont’ wander from this path regardless of what others say to them, whether this be friends, family, colleagues or a boss—a true Earth Warrior is someone strong enough in themselves to follow this internal call to respect themselves, the planet and their fellow human beings and where every action in life reflects this. If we wake up—individually and collectively—there is really a limitless awesome potential of where we could steer things and what we could make of this beautiful planet. We could if we wanted to turn it into a Paradise or perhaps “Heaven on Earth.”
This is about spiritual awakening people. This is about accepting the invitation to join the ever growing ranks of like -minded Earth Warriors and get left behind. It is about the best version of you that you could possibly be and doing your utmost to steer your life and in turn the direction of all of our lives, towards a better future.
Bob writes about the Slow Living Movement. This includes downscaling and rewilding and tips to moderate your use of technology in this overwhelming digital age. As life seems to be getting faster and faster, many of us are starting to react and are moving in the opposite direction—we are looking for slowness. For stillness. To live more natural, less complex lives. The human spirit can only handle so much before it cries: Wait a minute, something is not right here. The Slow Living Movement seeks to balance out the madness. To slow things down. To allow people to live more manageable lives in tune with nature’s rhythms and to enjoy little things. The good things that don’t necessarily cost money. SLOW stands for Sustainable, Local, Organic and Whole It is a global movement. This movement inspires people to have enough breathing space in their lives and for them to have time to CARE
Downscaling becomes part of the plan and process to change a complicated life to a simpler life. One of the things to do when you decide to simplify life is to cut out everything you don’t need. It sounds simple and it is. Many of us have a lot of stuff—stuff we don’t use, stuff that we don’t even remember we have, and it takes up headspace sometimes without us realizing it. It clutters us. Downscaling is about getting rid of what doesn’t serve to make room for clarity, headspace and well new energy. Many of us are caught in life where we pay for things we don’t need subscriptions, membership rental or hire charges. We absorb hundreds if not thousands of advertising messages each day—companies and corporations WANT us to constantly be spending and try to sell us stuff we don’t need.
Six Tips for Effective Downscaling
- Be Ruthless Try and ignore the memories attached with old crap. Throw it or better still recycle it.
- Stop ordering stuff. Just stop it. Each time you reach to click stop a moment and think to yourself. Do I really need this?
- If you do bring a new item into your home—see if you can get rid of one of those items that you already own. Make space
- Make a conscious effort to approach downscaling your life with a positive mindset, focusing on how letting go of things will leave you much freer to move forward and start new adventures.
- Seriously consider your phone. Do you need a smartphone? Experiment with making an old -style phone your default. Is the simpler old-school way of doing things actually something of a relief?
- Get friends to help. They can support you, help you make decisions and help lift heavy stuff—physically and emotionally!
It is helpful to get in touch with nature. Bob writes “Nature is beautiful, boundless, utterly fascinating, calming and deeply healing. Nature is my remedy: when it’s all getting too much I take myself off into nature and I sit. I rest. I let my brain untangle from all the human stresses that I am exposed to. My mind is settled by the sheer simplicity and deep calm of nature. Nature is slow. Nature is calm. It doesn’t rush. If we want a simpler life then we can learn so much from nature. It can be our wisest and most effective teacher in showing us how to slow down and start enjoying life more. If we can only slow down enough to listen to what it has to say.
Some people think we have to Rewind Ourselves. Bob says that many of us are searching for our wildness these days. More and more of us don’t want to be living civilized and tame lives. We need to be wild again.
Sheryl says maybe it means we want to feel again….to feel passion love joy and the beauty of Spirit shine through us from above to below so we know ourselves as divine beings of unlimited potential to know joy love and compassion. Societal rules and socialization leading to group think are over-civilizing us and we are sensing it. This civilizing can be traumatizing because actually we are not civilized, we are wild. On some level we were hunter gatherers and we have been that way since the beginning of time—it’s in our roots. It’s important we don’t lose this part of us.
Another quality so often squashed in today’s busy world is the simple ability to think for ourselves. To become aware of our actions and decisions every day so we don’t just blindly follow the crowd or like sheep do what you think society expects of you. Take a moment to really decide for yourself. We must also allow our planet to rewild and stop stripping the Earth of its life, giving forests and turning over too much land for agriculture and must preserve nature.
There are some tips for rewilding yourself.
Tips for Rewilding Yourself
- Spend time in nature
- Get in touch with the seasons by eating seasonal local foods
- Watch the sunset or sunrise as often as possible
- Become a gardener.
- Care for your plants.
- Rewild part of the planet Join a community project.
- Spend some time learning about the plants and animals in your area.
- Take up the Japanese practice of forest bathing.Doctors in both Japan and here in the West believe that spending time walking in a forest is incredibly beneficial for physical and mental health. It just feels good and is a great way to commune with —
- Get on the river: canoeing, fishing, swimming. Rivers and riverbanks are often tranquil places where you can be surrounded by nature.
- Brush up on your bushcraft: woodland skills—such as building a shelter or fire making without matches will help you feel more at home in the woods
Many people know the best things in life are free… When we slow down and start to heal, we can notice the simple things. When we rush along in our busy lives our minds become so cluttered that we can’t focus on the sheer beauty of life that is all around us.
Some of Bob’s favorite things are:
- Hugs
- Wild Food
- Chats with mates
- Wild swimming
- Looking at butterflies dancing around flowers in the summertime
- Stargazing on a clear night Walks in nature
- Making Love Surely the best free thing out there.
The 21 practices to Help Simplify Your Life include:
- Slow Down Live in the moment
- Take it easy Just BE.
- Learn to love yourself (Be good to yourself) and making friends with your own soul,
- Drop Your Ego Live from your heart
- Let Stillness be Your Friend (Be still and stay centered in a world that is anything but)
- Tame Your Mind with Meditation Learn to Say NO
- Don’t Take Life Too Seriously
- Learn to Breathe—Really Breathe Dance Dance Dance
- Try a Digital Detox Look at the Stars
- Connect with Nature Gardening and Grounding
- Set Your Intention
- Trust Your Intuition
- Do What You Love
- Practice Gratitude
- Become a Giver
- Practice Fierce Love
- Spiritual Protection (Self Care)
- Keep your Vibes High
Bob might like readers to take away with them after reading Simplify that quite simply the world is changing. This is a time of transition. Changing worn-out and out of date systems in the world. And the absolute best thing you can do right now is to embrace this. Fully. With open arms. Welcome change. We have been expecting you. Thank you for coming. Everything from the way the government works to how we dispose of our garbage—it’s all changing. And we are at the present in the stage of transition from the old to the new.
Start focusing on placing your energy and attention on things you love doing and take your energy away from things you don’t love doing. Every day for a week, think of something you really like to do and do it like baking a cake or taking a long relaxing bath or seeing a movie. At the same time bring to mind something that you don’t really want to do. And resolve not to do it. Don’t spend some time speaking to that person who makes you feel insecure. Say not to the person asking just too many favors. Where energy goes, energy flows. So be careful of your own energy. Don’t leak it away. You will soon find that your positive energy will increase the more you do things you love and the things you don’t love will become less as time goes on. Feed your soul, not the man.
We thank Bob Hillary author of Simplify: How to Stay Sane In a World Going Mad for an uncomplicated detailed manual to understanding what’s happening in this time of world wide chaos and change for sharing ways to understand energy, self, and the world so we can find our most soulful direction to living with health vitality balance purpose and happiness. To get a real clear view of how to walk the path of self- evolution and self realization while mastering and refining your emotions and at the same time simplifying your material world we suggest you read this book.
In summarizing today’s episode of Healing From Within Bob Hillary has shared his amazing journey leaving behind life as he was living it and all that didn’t serve him in his physical and spiritual life, and finding new ways to reduce the stress of his technological overload and a path to peace through downscaling and finding and accepting himself away from the pressures and expectations of society.
Bob writes,” In order to really engage with the world around us to be fully and powerfully present and to live a life of simplicity we need to ground ourselves in a solid rooted unswayable connection to the earth. Grounding in essence is living connected to the earth—physically mentally spiritually emotionally energetically. Many of us these days are getting a little lost in technology. The danger of this is that we can become disconnected from the earth. The best thing you can do to ground yourself is to start healing your past traumas. Our traumas are mostly the emotional and psychic wounds we have received while growing up as children—this is what blocks us from being fully in our bodies. They are wounds to the spirit. The pain can feel too much, we might not have learned how to deal with it, so we can check-out and leave our bodies to disconnect from the feelings. There are also wounds that can occur as adults too: we need to start on the healing to get into what’s happening within.”
Sheryl writes in her final book in a trilogy A New Life Awaits Spirit Guided Insights to Support Global Awakening a book of stories and messages from Spirit that show us our challenges are not economic, political or societal, just a spiritual disconnect from our true being or soul wisdom.
“Since most people fear change, they resist commitment to their soul growth or development. They linger in a state of physical unconsciousness. It is easier to feed the physical body than it is to feed your spiritual essence. There can be little change in a person’s understanding of who they are when they are only concerned with the joys of a physical life. I believe that we are all entitled to a beautiful and joyful material life, but it will not happen fully if we only focus on that end and the spiritual concerns and issues of a person are denied. When one aspires to love their essence and entire being, physical and energetic, major changes in all aspects of life must occur.”
Bob and Sheryl would have you begin a personal transcendence of the complications of this physical world and life, to reside in the energy within which holds the wisdom of the Universe which can guide us through these changing times to find our Higher Selves. We will then find solutions to the many problems we are facing worldwide and begin to create a community of spiritually connected people acting in balance with the circle of life.
Sheryl Glick host of Healing From Within invites you to visit her website www.sherylglick.com to listen to and read about the world of energy healing, Reiki, and to the changemakers and leaders in the metaphysical world and fields of science spirituality healing religion and the arts and music who share insights into the ever expanding world of human evolution. Shows may also be heard on www.webtalkradio.net and www.dreamvisions7radio.com