Archive for December, 2009

In Gratitude – Reflecting on 2009

Friday, December 18th, 2009

breakygirls

I love this time of year. I love that in my world it is HOT, that swimming in the ocean after a run is like drinking water from a well in the dessert, that people get together and celebrate more. Especially I like the quiet days after Christmas when I get to draw breath and review the year.

From September 2008  and through the early part of 2009 I went through my own very deep dark night, triggered by a very sudden loss in income (I had taken my eye off the ball). Even though at the time it was extremely difficult, a part of my awareness also realised that there was great beauty within the experience, and that I was being reborn, in some way, to a stronger me.

For many years now I have had one enduring prayer. “Please use me as you see fit.” Behind this prayer is the fervent wish to be used to the fullest of my capacity to support the highest good. Of course when you live on the edge of the world of service to the mystical unfolding, the tricky bit is that you really don’t know what being used to your fullest capacity is. Other than when you do what you do, your heart sings in tune and people really like what you do and it seems to help and certainly does no harm.

Having spent years really seeking for my vocation to finally get that it is not a destination but is forever unfolding – in other words my true work has been my true work every day, even back in the days at University when I waited tables – and that every step has been significant in bringing me here to who I am now and what I have to contribute, the prayer of  being used as you see fit has been in action every day. It is only the part of me that wants the action of the day to look and feel different than what it is that has been the issue. Each day I have learned to be present and grateful to the action of the day…in what ever form that is…rather than to want it to be different.

Yet at the same time, I can see a thread that runs through everything I have done.

The Way It Is

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change.  But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

William Stafford ~


So we approach the end of 2009, and I look back at the last 12 months. Given that so much of my work is the inner work I do on self, each year I get to this place and gasp at how far I have come, and yet each year I reach this place and feel like I have reached a good place, where I “Know” so much. And there in lies the beauty. Life is a constant unfolding, and while I have travelled far, there is far to go. And I am always amazed at how far I have come. It is a joy, this journey of life…

2009, it started for me requiring to go deep inside to explore my questions of value…what is value?..who says this is valuable?…why?…what do I feel/think/believe is valuable?…what does money mean?…how to I daily stay connected to source?..Especially how do I stay connected to source when I have fear in my heart and my tendency is to contract and withdraw?

This has been my enquiry for 2009. As I wrote early in the year, in the article on building an emergency tool kit, one of the daily, moment to moment practices I have been focused on is ensuring I have an open heart, and that I resist the urge to contract and shut down when fear looms. Even now, when things on the “outside”, my bank account for example, are in better shape, I find myself contracting from the age old in-built genetically and psychically programmed scarcity principle. That there is not enough. That the flow has stopped.

So this work goes on…daily, opening my heart, feeling my light shine, sending my light out,  knowing that when I do I stay connected. And that when we are connected the flow is ever present. It is only when I contract, when my heart closes, that I become disconnected. The practice for me is giving, giving, giving, my light, my open heart, my energy, my love. Because I know without a shadow of doubt that when I do this, all will be well, in whatever form that is.

This has been my biggest lesson for 2009, and it continues to be learnt and applied…daily..for the pull of self contraction, and scarcity thinking are so strong, and so inbuilt into us that vigilance is necessary.

During 2009, as I allowed my heart to open more, inspiring and wonderful events occurred.  Always for me the precious gifts of life are our relationships and shared moments.

Incredible relationships were forged in 2009.

My relationship with Laurent Labourmene is pivotal to 2009. We have spent hours on skype, working with each other through the storms, moving from storms to seas of possibility, hanging out in Brazil, meeting in Melbourne to share pizza with his partner, co-creating with others “The Constellation”, and finally, working together on Indigenous Prosperity in Adelaide. I am in so much gratitude for all of our time and experiences together, and for the rich future that is unfolding as 1 plus 1 equals 10000. (or more). Laurent is a friend, a buddy, a co-contributer to my work and I am a better person for knowing him.

Precessionally, from my relationship with Laurent, has come the relationships with Richard David Hammes, Lindley Edwards, Dave Martin, Cynthia McEwan. While these friendships  are new, I feel I have known these people all of my life, and forever before that.

laurentcynthia1

I have loved the conversations with Dave covering the worlds money systems, to the mystical and otherwordly, to “all in consequence.” Each conversation stretches me, and simultaneously, leaves me rested in a complete and whole space.

The many conversation with the gentle and wise spirit Cynthia, and her partner John. I feel so much richer with each interaction.

In Brazil I met many others who work so generously and with so much love for the betterment of our world. Morel Forman, Peter Merry, Lawrence Bloom, the incredible elder women, Jean Houston and Nancy Roof. I stepped into the heart of Rio de Janeiro, into the slums, with the elegant Maria …and the exquisite beauty, Giselle.

This year I have continued to work with extraordinary people. People who show up each day and do work that they love. Someone asked me recently who I like to work with and I said I love working with anyone who wants to do the work. I don’t mind if they are CEO’s  or the people at the counter. I have worked with teams of people who have inspired me with their willingness to get off their bag of tricks and roll up their sleeves and do the work that needs to be done right before them. I find myself doing more group coaching, which I adore, and integral leadership development, with leaders who are up for the biggest loudest truth they know.

I lived for three months in a house with just myself and my dog for the first time in 18 years, as my daughter Natalie travelled Europe. My mobile phone was my sleeping partner, as I often got the text in the night, announcing a new adventure, another great experience, or the joys of sleeping on the streets, or in train stations. There was the occasional “Help” text.

I ran another Gold Coast marathon and half of my third “Kokoda Challenge.” I learned newly about my body, and what it does under stress.  I have stayed in great shape all year, with not one shadow of illness, not even a sniffle. I put this down to lots of good sleep, healthy food, fabulous friends, and refusing to let things get to me..to keep that heart open and trusting that all is well.

I forged new friendships in my local community, with my Saturday running girls. Toni and Fiona and Alicia and Donna (and Jess, now based in Sydney). It has been so great to have such lovely people in my life – the girlfriends who all stay very fit, and yet love to enjoy life… Many Saturday mornings have been spent at the coffee shop at the beach, laughing so much passers by have said we shouldn’t be having so much fun so early in the day.

I have built a web site, Positive Deviant, and learned a lot about the interior of the web. It is of course such a huge field, so my knowledge is still quite novice, but certainly I have loved the learning. Thank you to SBI. You are an extraordinary company who genuinely gives far far more than I pay for, and does so with such high integrity every single step of the way. I have loved the experience.

I have found the beautiful piano music of Michael Jones. I listen to him play most every day. He is playing now.

When my daughter returned from her travels we hung out together, our relationship more mature, and even more loving, and every night for months, we would read a chapter from the Twilight saga together. Treasured moments.

As the year comes to a close I feel so incredibly grateful for it all. The hard start took me deep inside to explore the core of my values, I had to also sharpen some of my practices around the management of money, learn to do without, to not spend anything, loving the lightness and freedom of this.

I feel very certain that the new year, and my 50th year, will be quite an exception. What I have been building for years, with love and commitment, and with some seriously skinned knees along the way, is about to transform to a bounty that will see me used so much more than I have felt to this point. It is all so very perfect, and I am very blessed and grateful.

Thank you to you, the readers of this blog. While I do not know many of you, I am grateful for you making precious time to spend with me in this way. I do love connecting with you and hearing if my writing is on track…so please drop me a note…

I wish you grace and blessings as we move into the new decade.

Share

Tags: , ,
Posted in Unique | 1 Comment »

Boy do we make things complex….

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

Take climate change for example. Yep there is a lot of competing evidence one way of another, and sure, there are so many stakeholders with so many fingers in so many pies….but really guys, have we forgotten the basics?

The giant elephant in the room is that we, and I mean all of us, need to take responsibility for the field effects of our every action and thought. Its time. This is the game we play when we grow up. We throw away the childish ways of not knowing what happens afterwards, and we start to consider the all in consequence. No longer is it OK to blame, or to condone bad behaviour, by anyone. Our cavalier way of life, with no regard for the short and long term consequence, is what is in question here. And the effect of being more thoughtful and considerate, no matter if climate change is a myth or real, will be a win for all. Sure some big corporates may loose a bucket of money, but if they were smart, they can stop this from happening by being adaptive in their activity, and proactive in what they produce and how they do it.

We get so caught in the gory details, distracted from the real issue.  The real issue  doesn’t just rest with the government, or with big business, or with anyone else. It rests with our own level of CARE for all that we do, and our understanding that what I do, affects you, whether you are in the same room, or across the planet. And this is the issue. From which we can try to run, but we simply have no where to run away to, because there is no “there” that is away from us except in the very immediate short term. Eventually “there” will find us because to this point we all live on the same planet, and breath the same air.

In the early 80’s, Buckminster Fuller did the math. Humanities present rate of total energy consumption amounts to only one four-millionth of one percent of the rate of energy income. In other words, there is so much energy available to us every day, more than anyone could ever use, from the sun, wind, tides etc..all renewable. We do not have an energy crisis, we have a distribution crisis. And in this lies so many opportunities.

Bucky also said that using up our fossil fuel stores is like living off our savings account, when we have so much deposited into our cash account. We are going deeper into the red when we have a huge supply right at our fingertips. Waiting, waiting, for us to wise up. And human ingenuity…well of course we can find the solution to how to use renewable energy in a most efficient way…

As David Martin says so well in his great blog post, while all the distracting hoopla is going on about CO2, and cap and trade, and parts per million, few people are focused on the real conversations. For example, what if we found a better way to get energy, no matter what the source, from point A to the consumer. As its stands, the way it is distributed, close to 80% of the original energy is lost! What if this was reduced to 10%? That would be the single best action we could take. So obvious, yet no one seems to be focused on this.

It seems our focus and our energy is pointed in the wrong direction. And I say this literally and figuratively.

This seems to be our biggest dilemma. Our addiction to focusing on the drama and the noise. Instead of stepping back and getting perspective. See what is really going on. Taking time to consider the whole. Look from this place to the obvious..what is missing, where are the opportunities, what am I not seeing? This was one of Bucky’s main arguments, which is built around the principle of Synergy. That we simply must start with the whole first.

Instead we get caught in the swamp. All the noise and its endless attractions and distractions. Rather like we do in our own lives, where doing email, or going on facebook, or gossiping in the corridor, getting caught up in the noise of life, is easier than doing what we know in our hearts needs to be done, and often that means stepping away from the noise and getting some clear perspective, or cleaning up our own act, whether it is around our diet, our energy use, our carelessness…

Take the whole debate on obesity. Apparently there was story of a lady in Australia who lost 85 kgs (187 lbs) because she started doing moderate exercise and gave up junk food! No other fads or gimmicks. Well, of course she lost weight by doing this. It really is this simple. And yet we have an industry that make billions out of gimmicks. Why? Because we all want the easy path that doesn’t require that we modify our behaviour. Heaven forbid that we live a healthy lifestyle! I mean, that would mean I would have to take responsibility for my own health? I would have to learn about healthy food and cooking, get in touch with my body like I haven’t before, because I have been ignoring it for years, even though it has been screaming at me every time I go up a flight of stairs, or step on the scales, find ways to exercise that suit my size and temperament, and get educated on the dire side effects of medication instead of handing myself over to some guy/gal in a white coat. Oh no, changing my diet and getting out of bed in the morning to go for a walk is too hard. Getting educated is too hard… I’d rather pay for the drug, and then the surgery..forgetting of course that it is just not me who is paying..depending on which country you come from…that we all pay…..in so many ways…over and over again.

So we have a health crisis, where the cost of health care is skyrocketing. And the solution. Simple. Stop eating junk, get more exercise, quit smoking, get good sleep. Why is this not the only major conversation on this issue? Why don’t we talk about prevention?

Where do we focus? On everything else but the obvious. On who pays for what, and what the insurance companies can and can’t do, and how the system works, on and on endlessly. So the giant machine of noise can keep going, and once again, we are off the hook. It is someone else’s problem, and heaven forbid if I get my butt off the chair and go do something about it. Oh I can’t exercise, I have weak knee’s, I might say! A few weeks ago a guy “walked” the Kokoda Trail in Papua New Guinea, all 96 kilometers (59.6 miles) of extreme terrain, using his hands and dragging his legs, because he is a paraplegic. If he can do this, I can do exercise with weak knee’s. Take up swimming for heavens sake…but stop moaning and doing nothing!

Do I sound angry? Yes. This annoys the #@%$# out of me. We have lost touch with the very core of our human existence. Our connection to earth, nature, and our bodies. We don’t take the time to really listen to the truth that whispers to us constantly. Instead we drown it out with more…and more…noise, and stuff and complexity, and distraction.

There is an excellent article on our lost relationship with the earth, written by Ellen Gunter and published on Caroline Myss’s site, for those of you who want a more micro understanding of where humanity is at. This conversation excites and inspires me far more than the bickering going on about how much we need to reduce our carbon. The carbon issue to me is just a smoke screen (an interesting pun), on where the real focus would be better served.

And back to us, at the coal face of life (interesting metaphor). We circle back, as always, to truth. For things to change first I must change. Lets not forget that it is not just about the world out there…our energy choices out there, our care of others out there. We also have to look inside, do the work in there…care for self in there, educate ourselves in there….

Would love to hear your thoughts on this hot little topic….

Share

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Change, Current Affairs, personal sustainability | No Comments »