Telling you where to stick it, in my dreams.

So, the moon is now waning, and coincidentally I am now recovering my health, slowly moving out of that otherworldly state wherein the boundaries of your life suddenly shrink to the four walls of the bedroom.

But the super moon did not leave without a parting gift. It has been such a tremendous time of inward looking that I am almost grateful that I was sick. If I hadn't been I would not have been peaceful and still enough to receive the gifts on offer. I'll write more about the full range of insights I experienced over the weekend, but this little treasure I want to share straight away...

This morning my beloved declared that he had had the 'stupidest dream'. Not stupid at all as it turns out. He saw himself powerfully walk out of a past relationship, one in which he had been treated terribly. That's nice in and of itself BUT the magic of it is, he's not the only one. I too had an incredibly powerful dream that I walked out of a horrible, disempowering relationship.

Simply, powerfully, deeply, truly my beloved and I both accessed the energy circulating right now to release ourselves from old wounds. How lovely, especially as we approach this new journey of parenthood together!

Tune in...there's still time to access the hidden gems for you right now.

Why am I always the one who says sorry?

Self-discovery and pregnancy go well together

What a long time it has been since I last wrote. I attribute it to my pregnancy that whilst wonderful and a joyful state to be in is also exhausting. But I also made a huge discovery that I documented in my previous post, and, well...the discovery and the action to back it up are two very different things. I have been working pretty conscientiously to back myself up - to do the work required to integrate the new knowledge. Undertaking this whilst on the hormonal rollercoaster that is pregnancy has been fascinating to say the least.

A big part of integrating the knowledge that I have spent my life in a fruitless search for approval from others has been in working on my relationship with my best beloved. He is a wonderful, frustratingly patient man who appears to have mastered the rollercoaster of his own emotions. The first place I seem to go when I am feeling in need of an 'approval-hit' is this man. And when I don't get my needy, passive aggressive behaviour met in the way I would like it to be (Or would I?) I get emotional, angry and generally self-righteous.

Awakening to this pattern has been hard and is most certainly ongoing. But when I do recognise it, and it happens much more easily these days, I take responsibility for it. I say sorry. I have been saying sorry a great deal in the last few weeks. And it feels wonderful. The next step is to circumvent the whole process through activating self-approval. Joyful self-discovery continues!

One of these three things controls your life...

On Saturday I changed my life.

I discovered that I have been seeking something ALL of my life from everyone and everything. On Saturday, with the help of a wonderful healer named Doulla, I was able to identify it and begin the process of setting myself free. I feel like the prison door has been swung wide open and now the rest is up to me.

The best part is, it was so simple. And it is operating in your life too.

Every one of us is seeking one of three things that we feel we didn't get at some point in our lives. For me, it began at age 2 months ( I was able to identify this with Doulla's help). But don't worry, you don't need to know when this all began because I can guarantee that it did begin at some time and has been owning you ever since.

So what are these things? And which one has been controlling you?

LOVE

APPROVAL

APPRECIATION

Figure out which one of these has been motivating your life and you've got the key in your hand. Looking at your interactions with the world knowing this and you are walking out of the prison cell. Break the addiction to this feeling of lack and your running free through meadows of flowers with the sun on your back!

For me, it is approval. One key relationship in my very early life set up this pattern of seeking and feeling like I had failed to gain approval. And since then, unknowingly, I have been seeking it again and again. And unfortunately I am primed to feel disapproved of in my primary relationships and even when that disapproval isn't there, I feel like it is! When I don't get it, which in truth I never can because I don't believe I am approval-of, I set off on an emotional roller coaster ride and then become defensive and shut down.

Spend some time thinking about it and you'll be able to map your response too. The key to changing all of this for me is SELF-APPROVAL, of course, but I'll write more about that next time.

Get out of my way! I'm trying to be perfect!

Stressed out!

I suffer from this rather annoying condition. I want to do everything I want to do all at once. I want to be the greatest mother ever, I want to write that fabulous novel, I want to be a brilliant researcher and academic and I want to be the most bendy, peaceful yogi on the planet. All whilst running a harmonious home, eating right, doing my taxes and finding the right school for my son.

I want it all to be right, right now. I want to get it right, keep all the balls in the air, never let anyone down and be acknowledged for the effortless way I make it all happen. All this is in fact the symptom rather than the condition. The condition is something all the more horrible.

I want to be perfect. Oh the horror! What a terrible malaise to live with! What a shocking drain it is on not only me, but on all those I love and want to be oh so perfect for! For, of course, the reality is that when I drop even one or ten or all of those balls I'm trying to keep up in the outer atmosphere, I get angry. Sure, angry with myself, but then inevitably with those closest around me. Couldn't they see how hard I was working for them? Couldn't they have been more supportive in my quest to make everything right ALL THE TIME? Why did they let me get to this point? Why did they expect so much from me?!!!

Of course, you already know this one. They, being the long-suffering members of my family, and even my friends and colleagues, don't want perfection. They might want me to do my job, and be friendly, and not yell at them, but they have never used the word perfect, not once. In fact, I have it on good authority that my lovely, supportive, funny partner just wants me to be happy.

Much better

So what is the source of this stultifying condition? Oh, that's right. That would be me. I am the root cause of my own miserable pursuit of getting it right all the time for everyone. And that means being the most successful version of myself right this minute. I have so many things I want to do and be and see and feel that sometimes, often, I squash the life out of all the potential with anxiety and stress and rage that I am not there yet. Maybe if I was a little more perfect, maybe if I could tick one more thing of my to-do list I'd be that much closer to the version of me I think I must be.

Even now I can feel myself on the brink of one of those melt downs that are the release valve for all the stress building up inside of me. But this time I don't want to go there. Instead I am writing to you. I am writing to me and doing this thing called writing that I love more than Christmas. And slowly I can feel my body exhaling and my mind returning to this moment now. This time I won't get it all done, and I'll need o ask for help, and I'll have to shift some deadlines. And I think it's going to be all ok. Not perfect, but not that bad at all.

Meeting Brooke on the way to Osaka

I'm never sure, but I always hope when I make that seemingly random seat selection when checking-in for a flight that I am making an intuitively guided decision. Guiding me potentially towards a remarkable and unexpected journey be it through the person I meet sitting next to me, or the person it saves me from sitting next to who might otherwise have left me exhausted and annoyed for the entire eight hours. 


For all the plane travel I have done in my life, and there has been a great deal, I never lose that delicious feeling of adventure that comes with boarding a plane. Yes, even on a one hour commute to Sydney for work, I get that feeling. I wrote a few months ago, on return from one of the most significant trips of life about being a tourist of your own life, and in the time since then I admit it has been hard to hold on to that feeling. There has been a lot of stress, a lot of demands and not much down time. 


Even the anticipation of this trip (albeit for work) to Osaka was failing to get me excited about the adventure of the new and unknown. In fact, in the days leading up to my departure, I was downright anxious, uptight and fearful. I am pretty confident with travelling, but every detail this time round was causing me nauseating concern.


My flight to Osaka took me via the Gold Coast. The domestic route had failed to calm me and I was in a mild panic about currency conversions and how I was ever going to navigate my way from the airport to the train to the hotel without becoming hopelessly lost and having to take up a life of begging on the streets in Japan (if Osaka has beggars by the way I am yet to see one). I was a mess.


Somewhere in the fog of my stress I did at least remember to call on the runner guides as described by Sonia Choquette. These guides, part of the system of spirit beings available to you in your daily life, are indigenous to the place you are travelling to, and prepare smooth passage for you in whatever your tasks. They can do this as they have special and privileged knowledge of the place. I call on runner guides at the start of most every day. I boarded the plane and for a moment forgot my self-imposed misery as I took my very happy seat in the front row of the entire plane (thank you Jetstar for having a sale on business class tickets).


I glanced surreptisioulsy down as I loaded my bags in the overhead compartment, taking in a quick peek of my in-flight neighbour. I needn't have been coy. From the moment I was seated I don't think Brooke and I were quiet for more than twenty minutes together of the entire eight hour flight. Brooke was flying to Osaka via Cairns for a 2 day rendezvous with a man she had not seen for two years. A yoga teacher and all round joyous free spirit, Brooke and her Osaka based friend had first met in Goa when Brooke was first immersing herself in her yoga practice. Brooke had also just completed a 4 week yoga teacher training program the day before this flight. She was radiant and alive and on a mad and lovely adventure. It was refreshing just being in her vibrant energy, but it turns out Brooke and I has much in common too, having both grown up in the Middle East and sharing a similar spiritual philosophy.


I realised then with a quiet smile to myself that my random seat selection all those weeks ago had been divinely inspired, as I had hoped, and that this lovely, courageous (for many potent and sad reasons, as well as her willingness to fly eight hours for a 2 day fling), spontaneous woman was a gift to me. As the flight went on I learnt more about Brooke's story and the great sadness and trauma she had survived in her life. But it was no longer what motivated her, and it wasn't something she ran from at all. It wasn't even what defined her. She was not afraid. And by the time I landed in Osaka and had waved Brooke off to her terribly exciting tryst, neither was I. At the airport  I met two fellow conference participants, all of us having flown in from different parts of the world, who just happened to be staying at the same hotel as me. Disembarking from the train, and with no small amount of help from the incredibly friendly and generous locals, we made our way into the humid night and safely to our residence.


And since then, of course, everything I have needed has been readily available and easy to navigate. Finally, I am having an adventure. There is always plenty to be afraid of if we want to be, and I sure had been rolling around in it, but being reconnected to the expansive, wide-eyed adventurer inside of me has done much to send that fear packing. I am reminded through the lovely girl sharing that flight with me that life is what you make it. Thank you Brooke for being awesome, and in turn reminding me of my awesome too.

Learning to love reality

Being a tourist of your own life

I have just returned from a truly wonderful adventure in North America. For a time we were in the Adirondacks in upstate New York, and much to my joy and amazement, we were in knee deep and fresh falling snow in April! It was such a magic, secluded and beautiful place that I proposed to my partner, Julian, right there in the middle of all that snow. He said...YES!

Happily, we are now engaged. And returned home. 
And herein lies my challenge...

Being back has made me recognise how expansive, adventurous and attuned to the positive I am when I travel. When 'real life' sets in it can be hard to maintain the effortless joy that comes with travel. The challenge I have set myself is to be like a tourist in my own life. In other words, to walk around with fresh wonder and wide-eyed amazement. 

I am happy to report that so far this has worked a treat. As the days pass though I feel myself closing up little by little and I must keep reminding myself of the feeling of being awake to the possibility of what life might bring.

When we are away from our normal daily routine, especially when we are travelling, we are alive with anticipation of what each day might bring. When we get home, we fall into a well trodden routine, closed off, bored even and unaware of the possibility that is all around.

I have set myself the task of being awed by my life, by my home, my environment as though I was seeing it all for the very first time, of feeling like a bold adventurer in the day to day. And the best part - no ridiculous airfares and overpriced hotels!

Bon voyage fellow travellers!

The gift of knowing where the love resides

The Gift

By Hafiz (c. 1320-1389)

The Great Sufi Master of Persia

Our

Union is like this:

You feel cold

So I reach for a blanket to cover

Our shivering feet.

A hunger comes into your body

So I run into my garden

And start digging potatoes.

You ask for a few words of comfort and guidance,

I quickly kneel at your side offering you

My whole heart –

As a gift.

You ache with loneliness one night

So much you weep

And I say,

Here’s a rope,

Tie it around me,

I

Will be your companion

For life.