I've been trying to solve the problem that is me...

For most of my adult life I've been trying to 'fix' myself. In particular I have used my spiritual path as a multifarious weapon against myself to try and fix the broken parts of my identity. To try to be more balanced, less emotional, more at peace, more present, happier, wiser, less stressed ad infinitum! I have pursued connection to all that there is as a way to overcome my perceived flaws and most certainly to be more divine than human. My humanity has in a sense always seemed to be the lesser part of me and in need of some good spiritual discipline.

But as I get older I'm beginning to see that the way I have been pursuing my inner peace has led me to a place of inner (and outer!) stress. I spend much of my life feeling like I have failed in my perfectionistic attempt to be totally Zen! I haven't been able to fix me no matter the years I have tried.

And then yesterday something lovely happened. Sitting in front of my psychologist (the latest recruit  in my attempt to be perfect) I heard his wise and gentle words ( for he certainly doesn't want me to be perfect although he's ok with it if I do!) from the sessions we have spent together running through my head. They weren't articulated in the way he had offered them to me, but in my turn of phrase. And I didn't just hear them. I felt them. And what I heard was this...

What if there is no problem?

I hardly want to write another word. What else is there to say except that the impact of this simple question has had an astonishing effect on me. I feel very relaxed. This doesn't not happen often.

I immediately asked my psych how I hold on to this feeling and he said to communicate it. So I am, here with you. I hope it imparts even a tiny fraction of what I am feeling into your day. But if doesn't, no bother.

There really is no problem.

My boyfriend's sickness

My beloved and I, and the rest of Melbourne, are in the grips of a long hot summer, the hottest on record. I for one am well and truly ready for the heat, and the circumstances of this summer to be behind me and my family. It's a long time since these photos were taken. I think we had recently fallen pregnant with Luka but did not yet know it. We went out, we got a little drunk, we talked and giggled all night.

Having Luka was an event I knew would turn my world upside down. We planned for it. Finn being at school, we knew that would take time and energy. We were prepared. We didn't know Julian would get sick, and that it would slowly and quietly eat away at the limited remaining familial resources. Now it is March and we are both exhausted. We aren't even sleeping in the same room because my beloved has a wicked post-viral cough. Anyway, I collapse into bed at 9ish and he works until midnight trying to catch up on all the work he has missed.

I miss him. I miss us.

Part of me wants to panic about this. But I don't have the energy. Another parts of me wants to make an action plan to make date nights and romantic dinners, but we just don't have the time or space right now.

But my beloved is stoic and wise. He understands the saying that this too shall pass. He really gets it.

And then I realise I don't have to miss him. In the years we have been together he has been a balm for my restless sometimes troubled soul. He knows what so often I cannot. But this time I see it too. This is just a phase in our lives. It will pass. We will find our way back to romance and time alone. But for now he is resting on the couch beside me. I don't have to miss him because his calm has been imbued into me in some way. And because it may not look like it once did, but he is still my deepest joy.

A room of one's own

The year continues to progress slowly and steadily in our home, as my beloved gently reclaims his health, but outside the the world is buzzing by. Finn starts back at school in a few days, the same day I begin a new job.

This is also the same day Luka starts regular care in the arms of a wonderful French woman named Priscille. The same week that I decide I will try expressing breast milk for my baby, something I never did for Finn. The same week that we brought a cot into our bedroom and have very sincere plans of encouraging Luka to use it. All little steps away from attachment parenting, a model I so strongly wanted to commit to without hesitation.

But the thing about life is that it doesn't always, if ever, meet your expectations. I didn't expect that my beloved would develop a chronic illness and take months to recover. I didn't expect that this would bring up all sorts of delightful fears for me that I am, slowly and gently, now allowing myself to deal with. But that is for another post.

Today, I want to show you my newly discovered island. It is such a little thing, my new desk, so generously given to me by a dear friend. It colonises the corner of my son's room but as we have but a wee apartment at this point in time, it is the most space I can find. I plan to share it with him, but it is really mine. Such a little thing, but in the sea of my life right now, it feels like a genuine place to retreat to, an island of calm with the radio tuned to ABC Classic FM and my laptop always at the ready. It isn't a whole room, as Virginia would have liked, but it is a corner and feels every bit as precious. It has shored up my mental, emotional and creative health like nothing else has in months.

And I just wanted to share it with you.

"What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”

This summer I went back in time. It was a plan I hatched when I was pregnant with my son and preparing for his baby blessing. Such love reached across the country to me that I knew it was time to go home.

WA has not been my home for more than a decade and I have rarely visited it since leaving in 2001. But the friendships formed there are as real and important as ever, and I knew it was my time to give some love back to the people who have not left my heart despite all the time and distance.

There is something rare and precious about friendships made when we were young. There is an effortless familiarity. I do not have to explain to you who I am. And yes, we change, but not our hearts. I am so blessed to know so many wonderful open hearted souls. It was worth the journey.

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one". C.S Lewis

2013 can just wait or why I'm not flinging myself around

I am not ready for 2013.

This year, I am not going to throw myself into the new year. That would be my usual style. I love resolutions, making plans and lists, getting stuff done. Even though I don't think we need to wait for a new year to get clear about our goals, the combined collective consciousness around the new year does add to the momentum of creating a new vision for our lives.

This year, I am doing none of that, even though I would love to. I have a list. I have my lists 'to do' and my more spiritual lists 'to be'. I have resolutions for myself and for my children and my home and my work and my relationship and my soul. And I really, really want to get on with this new year with gusto.

Instead, I am saying 'no' to 2013. Just for a while. Turns out my beloved is and has been very unwell for some time and won't be better for quite a bit longer even with the best recovery. As a result this holiday period has been probably the least restorative I've ever had.

Letting go of expectations is hard work. The disconnect between what you expect to happen and the reality of the situation is where the stress happens. I know this. Yet I can feel the strange shredding sensation in my solar plexus that happens when I am trying to resist reality.

There are two things that help. One is this, as with all parts of my life, to write. It is the balm for my soul.

The other is to slow right on down, to forgo plans, to take it one day at a time.

Visioning the year ahead and making grand plans will wait. For now, I'm putting 2013 on hold. I am not going to fling myself around. I'm going to stand still. And for now, that's the best resolution I could possibly make.

Are you viable enough?

I send my son to a school in Melbourne's inner north, a tiny little collection of terrace houses with only 60 children from prep to year 6. The school has three aims for the students. The first is happiness. The last is academic excellence. And in the middle is the rather strange notion of 'viability'. I have often wondered what exactly is meant by this although I know I am seeing it in action when I see the confident, friendly, busy, creative kids so at home in their school.

I would describe the students as robust. Just recently the principal commissioned a mini doco to convey what is meant by viability. Although specific to this school I love the idea of what they are trying to impart and certainly think we could all do with a bit more viability.

Check it out...


Viability

I AM...

I feel like I am crawling out of my skin today. The image I keep seeing in my mind's eye is exactly that - the shedding of another outer layer of me. Like the snake that I am, I feel very ready to shed my skin.

But I have no idea why and to what end and what it will mean and what I might gain and what I will have to give up.

In my fantasy I willingly surrender to the highest good for me and all sentient beings, and in return in I get EVERYTHING I"VE EVER DREAMED OF ON MY TERMS WHEN I WANT IT WITHOUT ANY HARDSHIP!

Oh yeah, I'm totally willing to serve humanity as long as I am totally in control of the entire thing.

I'd prefer to turn my back on this feeling of yet another layer of illusion readying itself to separate from me. Then nothing would have to change and I could stay wedded to my domestic bliss. BUT the feeling of moving upward, onward, toward something too magnificent to find words for has me seeking out peace, meditating, reflecting, burning incense etc etc.

And still I have no idea what is really happening or why. I would love clarity about the next step on my path. But I might not get it.

Of course, the astro-weather and imminent solar eclipse is adding if not entirely creating this sense of crucifixion and resurrection...

Cruci-what? I hear you say...Yes, that old chestnut. I have been reading about crucifixion and resurrection as the essential metaphors for the human/Soul journey, and how when we willingly embrace the idea of dying in life we gain everything...

Rumi says it better than me:

To die in life is to become life
The wind stops skirting you and enters
All the roses, suddenly, are blooming in your skull

I feel fear at the thought of this imminent death, this skin shedding...but behind the thinking is a deep, soul desire to merge fully with whatever it is that is calling me, to enter into union and oneness, to arise cleansed, reborn.

I want to write I am willing. But all I need to say is I AM.

Hello...is it me you're looking for?

A perfect storm of astro-weather is floating around for the next few days including the third Super Moon in as many months, a partial lunar eclipse and the transit of Venus for the first and last time in about a hundred years. I am not an expert on these matters (check out Elizabeth Peru's great posts on all things astro) BUT I do know that times like these should not, and often cannot, be ignored.

And so, for me it is back to that old chestnut of SELF-APPROVAL. After spending the weekend wanting to blame my beloved for everything I realise I am the one who is being hunted down, and I should bloody well stop doing the same to him. Hello old friend, fear of disapproval, yes, it's me you're looking for.

Blah, I am so incredibly over it especially because I was certain that I had once and for all attained enlightenment on this particular matter. But no. Here it is again, a gift from the Universal forces conspiring this very minute to help us realise our truth and beauty. Luckily, once again, the timing for me is perfect. Last time the Super Moon was working to enlighten me I was super sick and had no choice but to be still. And as of today I am on maternity leave.

So here I sit in my super-organised apartment (super organised because I was nesting like a pregnant freak all weekend long), with nothing that I must do. The onion analogy is on my mind. I would like to, here this minute, be totally in awe and wonder of myself in a perfect ego-less way, but layers and layers are needing to be peeled before there is nothing left of this powerful and annoying step. That's ok. I have taken some big steps forward in the last few months.

And now as this wee baby is but 3 weeks away, another opportunity awaits for me to move through my own fear.I have the distinct impression also that this delightful soul inside of won't be born until I deal with this. Babies in utero, in my opinion, are still intimately connected consciously with all that is. This wise one knows what mama is dealing with undoubtedly, and will be happy to let me sort it out before joining us fully on this earthly plane.

I have no intention of plowing through on my own. I have picked up my 'how to deal with needy emotions' bible by Byron Katie - I need your love - is that true? Such a dorky but apt title. I LOVE this woman. She is a miracle worker and everyone should get onto her. Don't take my word for it. Watch her in action...

Don't be surprised if you are feeling things right now. Let them come up. It's the very best way to let them go so you can be free. Oh my God, that is soooo where I want to be.

Lying in the gutter, looking at the Super Moon

As this much talked about Super Moon rolls around (my moon - A Scorpio moon!), I am flat on my back, sick as a dog, wiped out.

And it is absolutely perfect.

As the astrologer, Michelle Proctor, tells us a Super Moon is a great time to go within, to do the work of the Soul. If external reality isn't too busy that is. My external reality has been charging along at an unprecedented pace for a pregnant lady. I have given myself a June 1 deadline to finish work before baby arrives at the end of the month. But that basically means cramming in 6 day working weeks and generally charging through any feelings of exhaustion. I have even joked about using my allocated sick days to take a break. But of course I haven't.

So enter the real thing. I am sick. And I am deeply peaceful. I spent the whole day in bed yesterday. Granted, not by choice, but the effect was still the same. I stop. I surrender. I connect to my internal reality. I get clarity around nagging thoughts I have been neglecting. And I blow my nose a lot.

Most importantly, I get to slow down enough to recognise the movement of the Cosmos, the drawing close of the Divine Feminine in the form of the moon. If you wanted my attention, O Divine One, you have it. I am deeply honoured to be present.

You can use this meditation to maximise the power of the Super Moon today or tonight.

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.

Zoe and the fairies

I am not sure what was more normal - the way Zoe and I became best friends, or the way we happily collected rubbish from the playground every lunch time. My love for Zoe was simple. The moment I saw her, by the swings, standing next to a girl called Tamsin, Zoe took my hand and I took hers and off we went.

I don't know whose idea it was to dress the fairies, although we both knew that it made absolute sense. Fairies liked anything shiny, a fact I knew without question. So at lunch time, as our fellow students discarded their lolly wrappers and crisp packets, Zoe and I would set to work, sweeping the concrete square for anything that glistened. It took us both by surprise as we lined up neatly in class rows at the end of lunch one day that the prinicipal should thank us for our efforts. We knew only that what we were doing was very important and would make the fairies very happy.

We would fold the wrappers we had collected into little dresses and skirts and leave them under trees at dusk so the fairies could collect them overnight. The outfits were always gone in the morning.

It wasn't until I was an adult that I started reading about fairies in a book by Doreen Virtue. I hadn't thought much about fairies since that time but the memories came flooding back as Virtue described the delight fairies take in chocolate wrappers, aluminium foil and anything sparkly.

How had we known? And what had we seen in one another that made us inseparable from the moment we met? 

This, the beginning.

This is the first thing...

Jammed in knee to knee with all the other pre-primary students, I feel a soft lulling as the piano starts to play. Cross-legged in the front row of the school hall, I can see the middle-aged woman laboring at the keys from side-on. She seems very big to me from my vantage point on the floor. The piano playing is an interlude between the announcements and the awards and the year two's rendition of You are my sunshine. Outside, the dusty playground is baking in the early morning sun. Already it is too hot to play out there. Inside, the large air conditioner wheezes on. Beyond the walls of the school, a whole world that I will never know is well into its day. The call to prayer commands the people to action at first light.

But all I hear is the sound of the piano, and the soft, sweet lulling feeling intensifies. I close my eyes for a moment, and when I open them I am no longer on the floor. I can see the piano and the big lady playing it from above. I can see me with my eyes still closed, neatly lined up in a row of tiny humans. I can see everything in the hall as I float close to the ceiling. The peace inside of me is consuming. My body is completely relaxed. Whatever I am doing right now, the music is the trigger. I am anchor-less for the duration of the song. I don't go anywhere. There is nowhere to go. I am just me, floating above me in the school assembly. When the music stops I come back down.

It happens all the 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.

My Walking Heart

So, last night, I got inked...I'm madly in love with this beautiful new addition to my body and with the meaning behind the words (Clare Bowditch's words). You can read the meaning below for yourself, and even listen to them being sung...

I cannot stop the world

But I'll be the tigress behind you

I'll help you build your armour

But you'll have to wear it for yourself

Of course I worry too much:

how can I not, you're my walking hearts?

Just beware the masquerade:

The circus that shines, but will not stay

Clare Bowdicth and the New Slang

All praise to Ryan from East Brusnwick tattoos. He's a superb artist and a lovely man and I'm thrilled to be wearing his original, hand-drawn art.

Thinking my next tattoo...

This image of Mary Magdalene or...


the words...


My walking heart


wrapped in a banner on the back of my neck below the existing tattoo of a feminine cross...
with this

added to the cross.

And the one I ended up with?

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.

You are the reason for all the chaos

Right now, most likely, there are at least five things in your life that feel chaotic and out of your control...

BUT... Imagine if all that stressing, fighting, anxiety, sadness, anger, rage, and victim-ness was to stop and you could stand still and really know peace and choose the life that you live, choose the energy that you draw forth towards you.

Imagine that in the very act of not moving, being still, the world around you responds to your energy. Your energy changes - the world around you changes. Do you think the energy you live in is just random, just something you happened to wander in to? Of course not. You have prepared it. You have sent it forth, you manifest it in this very moment. Every second you are generating your reality. Indeed, can’t you see?

You are fumbling through the world half blind, for in the movement and chaos of everyday life all you are generating is more of the same. Be still. Meditate. Plan your life energetically. In this we mean not to say like a take-away menu you sit down and order what you want to happen each day (although perhaps you will get there one day!). What we are suggesting, dear ones, is this. 

Your energy, the energetic web you spin, is what you live in,  it is the energy all around you, it is the energy that other people pick up on as you enter their space, that which the trees and plants and the birds and absolutely everything you interact with ‘reads’ when you approach. Now of course, just like you, most humans bump into one another energetically without a clue of what they are doing,  of what they are taking or giving. We challenge you now to wake up to yourself as an energetic being! 

You spin a web, you live that web! Do you understand? You are the creator of the reality you live, and we mean this in no abstract way. Become conscious of the web you weave. Start to see it in all your interactions, practice seeing it, feeling it, even if at first you see and feel nothing. It is something you will quickly become sensitive too. Develop this sense. It is more important than any other sense you have, for the others merely report on life. This sense determines your life! Be free of not understanding why your life is the way it is.

Ham Sa - Who am I?

Hamsa mantra: The Soham mantra is also called the Hamsa mantra. Hamsa (or hansa) poses the question, Who am I? Soham provides the answer, I am that.

I am that: While the English translation may not be as important as the quality of the sound vibration, Soham translates as I am that. When remembered repeatedly, it declares I am that I am that I am that I am. Remembering the Soham mantra often during the day can be a very useful practice.

Oh mind, sing the sound So Ham
Soham Japalehe Manawa
Soham, soham, soham.
I am that I am, that I am, that I am.

For more see this informative page Soham/Hamsa

7 keys to health

Image source

I heard Don Tolman speak a couple of years back. Besides the stetson as big as Texas and the jet black mo', what has stuck with me most was his simple list of the things required for a healthful life. They are so elegant in their simplicity. I keep a copy of them pinned to my wall so that I not forgot how easy it is to keep my life and health in balance. The 7 things he described the night I saw him speak with such joy and clarity include:

Image source

• AIR Breath it, keep it moving around you (a fan is good), keep it fresh (sleep with your window slightly ajar, open up your house to let the air through regularly)
• WATER drink it! And better yet, agitate it before you drink it (pouring it several times between two glasses before drinking)
• SUNSHINE put yourself in it. It's pretty common knowledge that most of us are Vitamin D deficient. We need sunlight for health. He has some pretty radical ideas about how it is actually sun block that causes skin cancer and not sunlight. Suffice to say, sunshine is an essential life force and we need to be outdoors regularly to be healthy. You can read more about the sun scam idea here.
• WALKING An hour a day, at least four times per week. Emotionally and physically it will keep you strong. If you are down, go for a walk, fighting with your partner, go for a walk, tired, go for a walk. It shifts everything.
• WHOLE FOODS Basically, the fresher the better. Limit the intake of processed foods. I walked through the supermarket several nights ago and was astounded at how little I can eat from the aisles and aisles of food. Since cutting out carbs and sugar, my diet has naturally become fresher and more whole. Wiki defintion: Whole foods are foods that are unprocessed and unrefined, or processed and refined as little as possible before being consumed. Whole foods typically do not contain added ingredients, such as sugar, salt, or fat. Examples of whole foods include unpolished grains; fruits and vegetables; unprocessed meat, poultry, and fish; and non-homogenized milk.
•  NON-TOXIC RELATIONSHIPS It sounds simple, but how many people do you have in your life who leave you stressed, uptight or angry? Just don't do it! 
• PASSION "If you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it"