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Silence is the new loud

Sunday, June 5th, 2011

A few weeks ago I wrote about getting back to basics. Part of that was to spend 10 minutes every morning and evening in silence. Not necessarily meditation, although it may be, not always prayer, although that may be there, not even contemplation. Silence was the key.

I find this easy to do in the evening, before sleep, when I am slowing down. Harder to do in the morning when I am fully awake and ready to jump into the day. (I am a morning person, one of those people who bound out of bed with full energy. The secret to this is a good 7 to 8 hours of great sleep. No surprise here.) In the morning my mind is like a room full of superballs, bouncing wildly all over the place.

The most surprising part of this commitment has been the deep recognition of my thirst, my yearning for…

silence.

Stillness, silence. No agenda, nothing to do, nothing to get, nothing to hear, no where to go, to learn, to be. Just silence and stillness. Like falling into the softness of your favourite arm chair, luxury and beauty, all combined. Spaciousness and eternity.

When I go into silence I am present to the low grade hum of Universe. The primordial sound, the source. It is like coming home. There is a peace there that nourishes my soul.

Our lives are filled with noise. Noise of activity, noise of the external world, noise of the endless chatter inside our head. Busy-ness and noise. Our days are like a cork bobbing in a very wild sea, constant motion, constant challenge from our environment. And then we usually numb ourselves out with TV, alcohol, food, facebook just so we can try to get to the ‘off’ switch.

I am never been a good meditator, although I have tried over the years. Let me go for a long run in a forest any day, than sitting still trying to still my mind for hours.

My little 10 minutes in the morning and at night of just being still and silent, without trying to meditate, or calm my mind, or do anything at all, has been the key. There is no striving for, no effort, no process. And it is beautiful. Beautiful. And so desperately missing from the endless busy-ness of life.

It has become a most wonderous, beloved part of my day.

Give it a go, and let me know what happens.

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Practicing Commitments

Sunday, May 22nd, 2011

There has not been much written of late, from yours truly. That is not to say that there has not been much going on, or even too much going on to find time to write. There just hasn’t felt like there has been anything to say. I have been struggling between the dictum that says writers should write as a practice, even when they have nothing to write about, and the unwillingness to publish just for the sake of publishing, which is some form of pollution. I guess my confusion has been around publishing, because there is nothing to say that what I write must be published. Duh!!!

During this time I have been observing some deep narratives within myself. Startled to see them…. both their depth, and their ability to have stayed in shadow, below the radar of my consciousness, for so very long.

For example…

The whole question...what am I doing with my life??… has surfaced again…mostly because it feels like only a week ago I celebrated my 50th year, and now I am not that far from 51. As things get ever faster, I am feeling that sense of time and life slipping between my fingers. This then raised the whole…failed expectations piece….but in truth when I dig below the surface of this one, it is about stuff that I don’t have that carries the disappointment…what I have now, that I value more than anything in the world, is relationships that are simply extraordinary and the field effects of those relationships that are being made manifest.

I also have seen this whole game that I have had going on..where I get into a funk of confusion. The ‘I don’t know what to do to solve this problem” funk. And in truth, it is just a habitual behaviour, because if I am really honest with myself, I really do know what to do. Always have. Maybe just failed to hold still long enough to acknowledge it, and to have the courage to go with it. I wanted to hand the responsibility of the decision to someone else. Yuk!

Then there is the…’I am all alone in this” Well that is also a bucket of BS. I have never been alone, there has always been people around me to support me, even if that support is holding a space for me to bump up against things in the night that are slimy and wake me up. Still, I cannot deny that the feelings of being alone are real enough, no matter their illusion.

I am also noticing patterns of scattered energy. In some things I am very committed, in others I notice I have random ideas and throw them against the wall to see if they stick. Take a breath Christine, sit in what is being born, and really honour the deepest impulse behind the creation, and also clearly choose to commit.

Where has this all lead…well, for a start, it is really important to go back to basics. The foundational stuff. The structures that hold my life together. For me this is always around a practice. My sport is a non-negotiable, hard wired now into my existence. Its the other bits and pieces that I need to strengthen my disciple around.

Practice what I teach. Really really practice it. I do, for the most part, but this needs to go up another notch. I have learned over a lifetime of attempts that we must keep our practice and commitments to no more than 3 points of focus. Anything else is simply a fantasy. And so we must clearly choose, and then definitely commit.

Yesterday I ran a workshop for one hundred sales and support staff from a lovely local company I have worked with for about 5 years. In this workshop I has people stand up and state their commitments publicly. That wasn’t the end of it though. The rest of the audience got to let the person making the commitment know if they believed them or not. Most of us know not only when we are lying to ourselves, but also when we are lying to others or being lied to. The person making the commitment got direct feedback. They also realised that in the wording of their commitment, they were using broad brush strokes statements that allowed lots of ‘wriggle out of the commitment’ room. Commitments need to be specific, detailed, clear.

These are the areas I have put a stake into the ground for the next 2 months. Till July end.

1. Practice precession. Focus 100% on living my primary impulse, which is to emancipate the human spirit, in three domains..

*by bringing light to truth
*by expanding world views
*by being a demonstration

Do this instead of being sidetracked by focusing on other things, like making money, or getting famous, or making a score, or hitting the jackpot.

Practice “Loving What is” exactly as it is. The good, the bad, the ugly, the..’I don’t want it to look this way, even though it does’…love it all.

Spend 10 minutes each morning and each night in quiet. Be it meditation, prayer, contemplation…that I bring the practice of stillness into my day. It can be more than  10 minutes, but 10 is the minimum standard. 7 days a week. Twice a day.

This is enough…actually these are really huge fulcrums for me. They might seem small, but they are giants.

My question to you is..what are you going to clearly choose to commit to today? What is it that you know requires your deepest and most aligned commitment? For indeed this is the keys to the kingdom you have been seeking for so very long. I would love to hear from you. Declare publicly, then keep us updated on your progress.

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The Majesty of Morning

Thursday, May 12th, 2011

 

I have never been a meditator, at least not in the sitting still form of meditation. My running and swimming are my form of meditation. And these two activities are an habitual part of my morning, rain, hail, or shine. In my running there is a space, an expansiveness, at time out from all of the competing commitments. This morning, a crisp autumn morning, one of those days where the Australian light, which is a different than light any light I have experienced in any other country..clean, sharp, vibrant, colourful…was particularly beautiful. But before that there was the first streaks of dawn across the Pacific, not a cloud on the horizon, and 4 stars clustered together in a most unusual formation. Venus and Jupiter, vibrant and pulsing and Mars and Mercury harder to see.

From the Herald Sun Newspaper.
The truly remarkable event – when Jupiter lines up with Venus, Mercury and Mars in the pre-dawn sky – will be visible in Australia’s eastern sky on Friday.
The alignment of the four planets, which happens only once every 50 to 100 years, will occur just before sunrise, Sydney Observatory says.
“Every couple of years you get two or three planets that come close together, but to have four is particularly rare,” the observatory’s education officer, Geoffrey Wyatt, said today.
The last time Australians saw such a show was in 1910, and the next occasion would not be until 2056, Mr Wyatt said.
During the alignment, from 5am on Friday, the four planets will be visible just above the horizon in the east.

Wow…I cannot tell you how beautiful these stars were, hovering over the crest of the Pacific Ocean. And then to run, as the sun makes its way into the sky, through the natural habitat of the Spit, on Queensland’s Gold Coast. It just doesn’t get any better. My cup runneth over with the majesty of the morning.

And it seems I need to be on the beach at 5 am tomorrow as well…to capture the full impact of the four planets in alignment.

On Tuesday my morning run was along Tallow Beach to Broken Head, Byron Bay. Followed by breakfast over looking Byron Bays main beach. So many people who come to Australia to visit fall in love with Byron Bay, our most easterly point. There is something about her energy….

 

What have you done today to be present to the magnificent majesty of morning? Of life? To the abundance that rolls always at our feet?

To quote from the master Rumi,

This moment
This love
Comes to rest in me,
Many beings
In One being.
In one wheat grain
A thousand
Sheaf Stacks

Inside
The needle’s eye
A turning night of stars.

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Cosmic jokes, hot sex, relationships, money…and sufficiency

Thursday, April 7th, 2011

 

I feel quite sure that the God’s are laughing right now. There is a cosmic joke and I am at the centre of it. Thankfully I have some levity around the subject as well, no matter how painful the journey to get to this point.

I am maintained that the four really sticky lessons for every human is money, sex, health and relationships. All of us have the one or two trouble areas from these four, and one or two that we are pretty clean about. Most people I have met have one of these that is a real biggie…the one aspect that seems to be a constant place of learning through a lifetime. Two of these we have agreed by silent consent are open to being discussed, and the other two are like some dirty secret that no one must talk about in public. Ever. Or if they do, only if they are a stand up comedian or they wrap it in humor.

My health is outrageously good, through a combination of fabulous gene’s (thank you mum and dad) and placing health as my number one value. It was not always like this,  and for the first part of my life my health was the area that I struggled with. Borderline anorexic, I lived for 17 years with a constant inner story about my body and my weight. Not a minute of a hour of my waking day would go by when I would not think about food, my body, my weight, what I would eat, what I would not eat. It was exhausting. It was also an extremely repetitive, boring, narcissistic inner conversation. One day I had had enough, and I simply refused to participate in this inner conversation ever again. (It was that simple, and it wasn’t, the work I did on the inside to get myself to that place was very significant and happened over years with great commitment). Although there are days where I have vague thoughts of being a few kilo’s lighter, or running faster, I really am at a place where I have sufficiency in my fitness, my health, my weight.

Sex, well we will save that for another story. I have spent years in abstinence, not because I don’t like sex, I just really am not interested in average sex and I am not that interested in a numbers game to get great, masterful, mind blowing sex. I do however think we need to talk about sex a lot more, and talk about becoming masters in being sexual partners. I would definitely like to see schools for learning how to pleasure others as a normal part of life. Really great sex is as much about mastery as any other skill in life, and I seriously don’t think many people view it that way. I do get to express my creativity by having supra sex, as Barbara Marx Hubbard calls it. (the massive high you get when you create incredible things with others..) As well, my sport is a great physical outlet. So with sex I feel I have sufficiency, even though most people may be inclined to say I am in lack. Give me excellence or naught.

Relationships, well I have amazing, great relationships with incredible people around the world. I love my friends, and the richness they bring to my life. An intimate partner, this has eluded me. For the most part, it has not been an issue. I am not someone who feels less than for being single. Maybe because I have an incredible relationship with my 20 year old daughter. Also because I get so much value from the relationships I have. I have a very different view on long term relationships than most people. (See my recent post on the Future of Marriage.) I feel a sufficiency around my relationships. Well nourished, in deep gratitude to my friends and family. Enoughness.

So that leaves the last one…money. This is my biggie. This is the one aspect of my life that rattles my bones. Well, it hasn’t always…while I was obsessing about my weight and body image I didn’t have time to think much about my relationship with money. (It just goes to show that the stories that rule our lives can be so massively noisy that nothing else can penetrate, including common sense.)

The cosmic joke…well just before I dropped the body issue story, I began to explore the money story. This was in my mid 20’s. There was something about this subject of money that really bamboozled me, and I am not comfortable with feeling like I do not understand something. So the search to understand money and my relationship to money began 25 years ago, and has continued to this day. Now however, it has ramped up a gizzillion notches. I have made a personal commitment to create full healing around my relationship to money, to value exchange, to the expression of my value in the world, to being acknowledged in multiple forms including money for that expression. I am not talking about superficial healing…I am talking about a deep ‘knowing’ type healing. For I have intuitively known for a very long time that my relationship to money is clouded because I get that our current system is broken, and I have been seeking/longing/feeling towards an alternate and it is this that has eluded me. I have also made a commitment to supporting as many other people in the world heal their own money/value illusions. And to support people in really understanding the very system we live in, and how to engage in a parallel system that allows true recognition of value where value is expressed, and not some superficial recognition that says the person with the most stuff, or fame, or is able to manipulate and spell cast better than anyone else is the one that gets the biggest goodie bag, while a teacher in whom we trust the education of our child, gets scraps. Our current system is a dud. There is no tweaking that will fix it. Its very core DNA is corrupt, and has been from its original design. The time is now for a new value expression that takes into account and honours all players, all contributors, past, present and future.

So..the cosmic joke is that my journey as a single parent, and with a ‘story’ going on and on in my head for the last 20 years about not enough..never enough…and my struggle with my relationship with money taking me to a very precarious place where I have way too much debt and have not valued myself enough to ask for what I am really worth…this has all lead me to a deep and getting deeper dive into really understanding our current system, and really building a bridge to a healthy future system, and really being able to support others in the same journey…and in the process will heal me, and others…and that now looking back over this last 25 years, I see the road has been a perfectly designed launch pad, fitted with trials, suffering and all the usual difficulties that bring us, humbled, to our knee’s, open and willing to explore the very core of our brokenness. As to the nauseating story of not enough, I am seriously over that. Over, over, over…broken record, ruled my life for way too long over… The exploration now is sufficiency, no matter what my earning or my bank account or my debt situation is.

Someone once said, with great wisdom, we teach what we most need to learn. Touche.

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Small and large meltdowns….love and other catastrophes..

Monday, March 14th, 2011

6 Foot Track, Trail Run, Blue Mountains, Australia,  2011

 

I have been running for 17 years. I started running to get fit after giving birth to my daughter. It has become a way of life. I have run close to 20 marathons around the world, and many ultra marathons. My favourite events are the trail ultra’s. Being out in the bush, totally focused on my very next step, and holding this focus for plus 5 hours. People ask what I think about. Rarely do I find myself thinking about anything outside of the immediacy of the needs of my body. It is a very cyclical internal conversation. Monitoring everything. Focusing on every step, for to lose focus for even a micro second means a potential trip, a fall, a sprain, an injury. Everything disappears for the time. It is you, your body, and the forest. I find great beauty in that. Life becomes so very simple.

Last year I ran the famous 6 Foot Track in the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney for the first time. I did not know much about it, I had no idea of the course, the hills. I just showed up, and ran. Often this is the best way. It is a pure adventure. A complete surprise. It was a great run. I felt the best I had felt in years. I did not find it hard at all. (Meaning, my body felt well, and strong, no nausea, cramping, difficulty, my movements seemed to flow. Yes, I did get muscle soreness, and it was hard to work the hills, but I felt good.)

This year…well…no experience is ever the same. Some runners go years seeking that moment where everything comes together. That was last year. This year I became aware very early on that something was not right. My quad’s (anterior thigh muscles) felt weak. Unbelievably weak. ‘Recovering from being bed ridden for a month’ weak. This is not good when you have 2,250 metres of vertical climbing (1.39 miles) ahead of you. I had never experienced this before. Not in 17 years of running. Ok.. I said to myself…this too may pass…just notice, let it go…send energy to my legs…For in a 45 km race (28 mile), feeling bad may turn to feeling good at any stage. And vice versa. It was hot, much hotter than last year. While the water stations were very regular, I was thirsty. I was not carrying water with me. Last year it was not necessary. Hmm. Lesson learned.

After the first major climb I knew my trouble was deepening. Not just weakness now, dizziness, wobbly on my feet. And already very slow. Not even half way into the race. Ugly. Tried to drink sports drink, eat some food, get some energy happening.

On Thursday night in Sydney I had met with my beautiful goddess friend Lindley. She has been guiding me on bringing my yin (female) energy into more balance. Running trails is more yin than road running, if you allow your body to breath with nature. But if you hunker down, and push past all intuitions, it reverts to a very yang form of running. I have been very strong in my yang energy for most of my life, in almost all aspects of my life. And in my running, other than the Kokoda Challenge last year, I have only ever pulled out of one event. I have pushed through stress fractures that became full breaks, extreme nausea, hyponatremia (Ironman NZ 1997), and all the other bad days at the running office. Never give up. Never quit. Grit your teeth and finish it. You could count on me to finish, no matter how long it took.

Last year at Kokoda I learned about pushing to collapse. I am wiser now. And older…I heard a voice in my head say…”you do not have to flog yourself any more Christine.” Oh heavens, what a relief. I don’t want to flog myself any more. I have nothing to prove, to me or anyone. I can stop. Surrender. Let go. There is no shame in that. Indeed, the opposite. There is a reverence for my body, and myself.

So when I started to get random intermittent cramps, something I never suffer from in my running, I knew I was in quite serious trouble physically. My body was in melt down. Those were the words that came to me. My cooling system was gone, my body electrics were all out of balance.

I have been thinking this morning that it is strange that these descriptive words are also the words being used to discuss the Japanese nuclear situation as a result of the earthquake and tsunami. On Friday late afternoon when I got to my accommodation in Katoomba I had learned of the Earthquake in Japan, watching, like most of the world, the images of the tsunami that were almost impossible to comprehend as real, and not crafted from some Hollywood blockbuster. Once again, I was crying, feeling so deeply the pain of the people, of earth, of loss. I have felt like I have been crying all of this year so far. The Queensland floods, so near to me, the cyclone, again in Queensland, the Earthquake in New Zealand, and now this. Lurching from disaster to disaster.

My own meltdown was of such insignificance in the scheme of things. However, I am getting that there really is no insignificant event, or thought, or action. As Caroline Myss writes in this very powerful article, we must start seeing and experiencing Mother Earth as a living breathing evolving entity in her own right. Not some static dead thing. When we go into the forest, the forest hears us. When we rape and pillage Earth, she experiences pain. When we are completely out of balance..when there is way more yang energy, then the balance must be restored. And given that Mother Earth has been around for a very long time, I suspect she has the wisdom to know how to restore the balance. However, it will come at a cost…the cost of our gross neglect. And the tragedy will be felt at the human level, as it is being felt now. The heartbreak of real loss of life.

I surrendered. I stopped running. While a part of me didn’t like it, I knew I had made the right decision. The one that honoured me and my health.

Instead I got to hang out with the wonderful volunteers of the Rural Fire Brigade. The 6 Foot track is one of the best run events I have ever attended. (It beats the Boston Marathon hands down.) The Rural Fire Brigade are an extraordinary group of people. I spent several hours in the back of a truck driven by Jack, 18 months retired from being in charge of the Blue Mountains Fire service. Jack signed up when he was 14, in 1953. He rode his horse 10 mile to a meeting, paid his shilling, and rode back home again. Sometime later he was offered a paid position, so, as he said, that 10 mile ride defined his life. As I heard later from John, the bus driver on the trip back from the finish line to Katoomba, Jack was loved by all in his role as leader. His people trusted him, and his skill and knowledge were masterful. Now retired he brought a Harley Davidson, and volunteered at the 6 Foot Event so he could meet up with all his mates. He is as Aussie as you can get.

Something opened in me this last weekend. I have noticed an increase in small miracles…little things…like needing a hair tie at the pool today and almost immediately looking down on the ground and finding one lying there. People being in the right place at the right time, offering to give me lifts, take me to the airport, or the train…

Having spent 50 years with a deeply held belief that life is hard, maybe in no longer being interested in flogging myself, I have released myself from the grip of those smothering tentacles. And in so doing, as Rumi says, life rolls in ecstasy at my feet. Or as Lindley said on Thursday, treat yourself as you would your very best friend. (Would you verbally beat your friend up if she made an innocent mistake? Would you have your friend push themselves into the danger zone just to suit you? Would you want your friend to suffer from overwork? Would you starve your friend for the sake of appearance? Or deny your friend of regular good sleep?)

I will keep running, for now. I may even be back for 6 Foot Track next year. But my intention has changed. I run to be in balance with all, to partner with my body, and nature. To flow with. This is where the joy is. This is where my heart sings.

And my meltdown. I have been in a meltdown for a few years now. My reactors (everything that makes me react instead of respond) are being/have been exposed, and they need cooling. I have sat in my anger, and my fear. Now it is time to be in my love, and be love. What a revolutionary, evolutionary thought.

Sending love to all the people in the world who are suffering. And to all the animals who are suffering. And to Mother Earth in her suffering. Lets stop flogging ourselves, and our world, and each other.

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What would love do?

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

A study of fear, part 2.

Listening to an audio of Ken Wilber on Love and Evolution, he reminded me that the opposite of love is not hate, it is fear. (Course in Miracles)

When I am in fear, I squeeze out love. When I am in fear, I contract, shut down, isolate myself further from the world, re-inforce the illusion that I am separate. Oh this was a remembering that was beautiful to hear. I know how to do this…when I am aware of the fear, I simply remember to open my heart to love. And to ask, with constancy during the day, “What would love do in this circumstance?”

Love is the opposite of fear. Of course! Open my heart, allow the Universe to support me, which it is doing anyway. For in the fear I shut down. I become an impenetrable block. And my greatest yearning is to be in flow, to be giving and receiving as in a beautiful dance.

Today I was listening to the wonderful Jean Houston, and she was talking about how many indigenous communities do not ruminate over their problems. They dance them. What a wonderful thought. What a wonderful activity…to dance your problems. She also shared an incredible exercise of manifestation using all of your senses…..it went like this…

Imagine the project you want to bring to life..

Now working with taste…in your imagination…

Taste the most amazing crisp apple..

Taste ice-cream..

Taste hot buttered toast..

Taste a green salad, with olive oil and lemon juice…

Taste a chocolate mud cake, with a chocolate mouse filling and fresh raspberries….

Taste something from your celebration dinner when you have finished your project.

Smell..

A garden of roses..

The sea…the waves as they lap on the shore..

The meadow after rain..

A pine forest..

Bread baking..

Smell your project…don’t worry about the logic of it..just smell it..

Touch..

the long soft nose of a horse..

Plunge your hands into a barrel of potato chips and break up as many as you can..

Walk through a great tub of warm honey..

Play patty cake with a small child..

Climb a tree..

Touch your project as its being accomplished.

Hear..

A rainstorm on the roof..

Someone singing your favourite song so beautifully your heart breaks..

Martin Luther King giving his speech “I have a dream…”..

Hear something that has to do with the accomplishment of your project.

See..

A sunrise…

A sunset..

A space shuttle taking off..

A fallen star..

A good friends face..

See your own face..

See your project being accomplished..

See, hear touch, taste, smell the project……then dance your project…bring it into your whole being. What a wonderfully embodied manifestation exercise.

As I move forward daily into my own unfolding, I am paying ever increasingly more attention to my intuition. Not only hearing it, but acting on it. For the longest time when I think of joy, I think of dance, bare foot…on the sand, or grass, or somewhere were there is space. When I think of being in the presence of my beloved, I think of lying with my back on the earth, again on the beach, or grass…but stretched out, feeling the earth beneath me. These images come to me so naturally, but do I do these activities.??..no…only in my mind. How easy it is to do these things…to be present to what I love. Just as I love running in the forest…especially hurtling down a hill at break neck speed, throwing all caution to the wind…love love love this…why do we not do what is so easy to do, that we love, and if often free?

About 18 months ago I wrote a piece, The Emergency Tool kit. My own little kit of actions to take when life seemed too hard. How easily we forget our own medicine.

I have a beautiful little silver box sitting on my desk, given to me by a beautiful friend for my 50th birthday. Inside it she placed a silver egg. Very symbolic. This gift spoke to me more than any other gift, in its simplicity and the profoundness of the message. (Although I do LOVE my ipad.) I use the box on my desk to place the things that I am worried about. Its my “God” box. When my worries are in the box, I no longer have the right to worry about them.

“When you try to do God’s work without God, it is very exhausting.”

(I am speaking on the God that is source, Great Spirit, Universe, the Field)

If I really want to worry about what ever is in the God box, then I have to take it out of the box and get deep into the worry. Just as I have done with this study of fear. Get into it. Go to its source.

I am seeing how deeply the tentacles of scarcity are attached to my being. I am not sure when or how this happened. I was not like this in my earlier life. I was not like this in my 20’s. I think it may have really started when I became a parent. It is almost like I am in the arms of a giant octopus that is keeping me stingy and tight. Contracted and seriously lacking in spontaneous generosity….I can be generous, but often only when it serves me…and at the core of this, is fear.

From this moment, the practice is love. What would love do? Open myself to the love of all creation. How very delicious.

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A Study of Fear

Wednesday, January 19th, 2011

I have decided to take the next few weeks, or months, to sit in and become deeply acquainted with the fear that shows up in my life.

Why? Because I no longer want it to be the driver of my life. As well, after a conversation with Caroline Myss last week, where I asked her why my life felt so hard, she suggested I needed to take more risks…that I needed to look at where I was most afraid and step into this fear.

So here goes.

The deepest fear I have been living with that has been exacerbated these last 2 years is around the fear of income flow, or lack of it. The fear of lack.

Every Monday morning…that would be now, I am supposed to sit down and do all my banking, pay bills, look at income, cash flow, etc. I hate it. I procrastinate. I am afraid. The ‘not enough’ and scarcity drives me.

What exactly am I afraid of?

I am afraid that there is not enough. That I will pay the bills and then there will not be enough. That when there is not enough I will become paralysed with fear. That I might have to ask for help, or reveal myself as not being capable, or able, or smart enough, or good enough, to make an income. That I cannot support myself. I fear the lack of flow. As I write these words and sit in the fear, I feel slightly sick in the stomach. This part of me that feels completely responsible to generate the income, to get back out there and generate, and do it again, and again. And yet I am good at it. I am very creative. I love creativity. I love generating. It is the need to generate to create money that I dislike. Its the pressure to need to actually generate money, this is what exhausts me. It feeds right back into life is hard, making money is hard.

More reflection, some days later.
The burden to create is a big fear. The key word is burden. I love creativity. There is also an element that feels that I am being punished…for what I have no idea. And some ‘poor me’ victim. ‘Why me?” Why is life hard for me? Why do other people seem to get it easy?

There is an element that is about being alone, doing it alone, going it alone…’Dear God, why have you forsaken me?” Then I get angry. I feel let down. “Goddammit I have done all this work on my interior, and here it is again. STILL!!! How much blood do you want from me? How much do you want me to give?”

Last night before bed I prayed and asked for clear direction. As I was driving to my run this morning, listening to a random audio that I download from multiple places, the message was clear. I need to give more. BUT…and this is a big but, the way I give is very important. I need to give from abundance, and light, and without a single thought to get something. I need to give because it is spontaneously arousable within me. I need to give from infinite supply. Sure I have given in the past, but often there has been an energy to my giving which has been about wanting to get. And when I give from this energy, I get resentful. I need to show up from a place of infinite supply. Rather than carrying this energy around that is deeply rooted in lack.
The practice is to give something every day, purely as an act of giving. If I were really ready to take a risk, as Caroline suggested, then I would give money every day. Random acts of kindness, for example.

Going even deeper….

At the very base of my fear is the thought that something is wrong with me and God has abandoned me. And a deep sense of disappointment that if I risk again I will again, be disappointed.

I feel a victim to God. Yet for years I have been teaching about the powerlessness that is a partner to the state of victim hood. This then raises the question, where have I abandoned myself? Where do I abandon myself? This question will require further study.

And because my deeper knowing knows that it is not true…there is nothing wrong with me and God has not abandoned me, that this is some belief I created a long time ago as a fractal of an experience I cannot even now recall, what do I need to tell myself when I am feeling this powerlessness?

As I was running in the forest this morning, this inner dialogue unfolded…and the words I need to speak to myself when I am feeling this fear goes something like this.

“I am here for you. Always. Always have been, always will be. Be still, listen, and trust.”

“I am” is a Universal “I am.” God, the Universe, me, everything.

And I thought about the 17 years I lived deep in the grip of a psychological eating disorder. How it ruled my life. And then one day I just said ENOUGH. Occasionally the remnants of this beast comes back, but I know how to banish it, again, from my existence. If I can do that around my eating, I can do this around my fear of income flow, work, value.

And I know how to live in flow. I do this in my work, my writing, and around my food. It is a matter of respect and attention. And trust. I trust that when I coach I am connected. When I write, I have no idea what words will happen next, where they will come from. When I teach, the same. I know that there is an infinite source, and infinite supply. I knew this when I first became a mother. I just had to relax into my own wisdom. Trust myself. It is a skill I have learned as an athlete. To know the difference between flow, and pushing.

Yet in my allowing and receiving, and my larger context of work, it has felt like I have been disconnected and out of flow. Yet I truly know how to do this…why would the principles be different?

First to be aware of the fear and contraction. Then to affirm the truth. “I am here for you.” Over and over. Listen and trust. And have zero expectations of what happens next, just like I do when I coach, facilitate, teach, write…Give up the thought that if I do this, I will get that…I hold an intention, but the intention is based on giving. In my coaching the intention is on the other…for me to facilitate the highest level of emancipation within the human spirit I am capable of. In my writing my intention is to share my experiences in a way that allows others the ability to find their own truth. In my facilitation we usually have an agreed intention, and a part of that for me, is again, the emancipation of the human spirit. In my parenting, the intention was always to create environments where my daughters true nature was allowed healthy expression.
The intention I hold in my work is the emancipation if the human spirit. I do this in several ways…by allowing different perspectives to become evident; by bringing light to truth; and by being the demonstration of everything I say, do, teach, believe.

So I have my intention, and my fear diminishing mantra, and then I listen, and trust, knowing that there is infinite supply. And move from this place, not expecting anything. Moving with what is spontaneously arousable within me.

This and a daily practice of giving from infinite supply, in a completely unattached way.

I am going to set myself up for an experiment on this. I commit to living and being this way for the next four weeks. To February 16th, my daughters 20th birthday. I will keep you posted about the experience. What happens, my fear levels, if the doors of synchronicity open. I have nothing to lose.

Would love to hear from you as to how you address fear in your life, what you are afraid of, and any other response to this blog….

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My life viewed as a fairy tale

Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010

For the last two months I have been participating in a fabulous course, Calling in the One. To sign up to participate, I had to get over a few hurdles. Including the title of the course. I have never been a big one for finding a soul mate, or even having an intimate relationship. Evidenced by me being single for more time than I have been in relationship. However, after the massive inner deep dive I have been catapulted into over these last two years, it occurred to me that I would like to have a relationship. Not just any relationship, but a really fabulous one. A joyous, easy one. To do this I had to take a stand that this was possible, because everything I had held as true until this time was that relationships were hard. Having spent the last 25 years in a very committed relationship to myself and my own inner development, to participate in such an excellent course as the one created by Katherine Woodward Thomas and Claire Zammit required that I really trust their ability to have me grow in areas I had not considered before. And they have delivered. It has not been a flaky course, it has required a level of rigor and accountability that I love. While they say it is based on the the laws of attraction, these laws as I know them have been give such a bad new age rap of late, that for the most part I move as far away from anyone who says they teach the laws of attraction as possible. However ‘Calling in the One’ might be more truthfully titled ‘Calling in Your Best Self’, as “The One” is in fact, the highest potential of you. So it is not about getting more stuff, including a soul mate. It is about being more of you in your fullest way, shining your light, and as a consequence of this attracting the mate, and other things that are aligned with your truthful self. Part of the course has been to read Katherine’s book, “Calling in the One”, which I have been enjoying. One of the earlier exercises was to write the story of your life in fairy tale version, specifically focusing on your relationships.

I thought long and hard about sharing this, as it needs the context. However, I felt that you may relate…so here goes…please comment, laugh, share, or even do this for yourself. I found it illuminating.

Once upon a time there was a beautiful little girl who became an amazon warrior on a crusade for a new world that valued people, the earth, truth, and natural design.

As a child she roamed hills, climbed tress, and lived in a land that was not of earth. In this land there were gods – strong and certain of their path; beauty beyond description – forests, streams, skies. She was adored by her father. He lived to play at his work.  Her mother was remote and responsible, the backbone of the family. Stoic, capable, reliable.

When she was 11 years old, she was brought to earth with a crash. She had no idea of its existence. She had no idea that people where critical of their bodies and each other. That they could be so cruel. She had no idea that life was so hard. So she knuckled down and worked hard..and harder, trying to fit. She soon forgot the world she came from, where life was beauty and grace and love.

As she got older, the world she came from got further and further away from her. She remembered it in poetry, or books, or movies. Flickers here and there, like lights from angel wings as they avoided discovery.

In the beginning men were very attracted to her. Many of the men were god like in their own way, either in their own beauty, or their stand in the world. But she really did not pay attention. There was something else calling her, something she could not find. For years she searched. The man she married had what she was looking for inside when she first met him…a deep connection to something…but he lost the connection, and it seemed, he lost himself. She was hoping that he would be her guide to help her get back home. Maybe he was, in his own way, as she fathered an amazing girl child with him, and this child was an angel.

Thinking there was something deeply wrong with her, she nearly married a man who was so alien to her essence. He saw her as an object, a trophy. He was so disconnected from soul that when she finally came to her senses, three weeks before the marriage ceremony, her feelings of shame at her weakness for choosing him lasted many years before she could forgive herself for straying so far from her own beauty and value.

At one time she also met an angel, Joseph, who was struggling to fulfill his earthly existence. But he opened her heart, and in his arms she felt beautiful. His very whisper made her weak at the knees. But he was not long of earth, and left to return to his angel kingdom.

Then there were long periods of solitude. She spent her days in work, raising her child, and bearing the burden of being a single parent. Life felt hard. Her home was so far from her. She felt a deep sense of failure, of never being enough. There was something missing, something so important, but she couldn’t remember what it was. She had dedicated her life to finding it.

But she had to find it in herself. She remembered when she was a young child and a bird had died on the footpath in front of her. There were ants crawling over it. She picked it up to warm it and was told that it was dirty and wrong to do so. She remembered thinking that people where trying to take away her connection to what was true. The whole system of the world was conspiring to have her forget, and yet she would never let them take away the ability to love life, and nature, and what was whole and good. She was ferocious in her clinging to this vein of truth, so very deep, so very mysterious. Yet inch by inch, bit by bit, the threads were lost. Never lost completely, thank God.

Now, as she enters the age of the wise woman, the fierce wise woman, she has to bring the threads back together. What is required is courage, compassion, and an all encompassing belief in herself that can be felt around the world.

She has to be willing to step into her wisdom, her maturity, to give up the lost little girl feeling that has walked with her for so long. She has to stand in her magnificence, her value, her goddess. The whole of earth tremors when she stands in her glory. Men and women alike pause as she passes. She has found the key, and they know it and want it too.

As she stands in her fullness, the god who has been waiting for her for eons stirs, and travels towards her, across oceans. He has missed her. They have known each other from other lives, other times, both of them untangling the cords that have bound them to earth, to pain and suffering, to struggle. They have shed the cloak of time together, and meet, again, in an embrace that is home. The earth begins to breath again, for they are part of the warrior tribe who place goodness, truth and beauty as the centre of all existence. This tribe awakes, just as she awoke. They are coming together. They know the truth, and they have a contract that spans history to support the re-membering of the truth. The birds sing…

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Lets dance together…

Tuesday, December 7th, 2010

Who the hell am I? I am not the one who took a breath yesterday, or indeed the one who spoke on the phone today. The very fiber of my being has been completely unravelled and reorganised. Who ever I am I am liking more and more.

I am not the little girl who never felt she was enough. The one who has worked her arse off to prove that she is worthy. I am not the set of beliefs that has ruled my life for so long. I am not this, not that. I am nothing and everything. Nowhere and everywhere.

I am light and energy. I am at times profoundly human, and at other times a complete mystery. I am feeling and sensing into spaces I did not know existed. I am excited out of my skin by the possibility of the unfolding…the unfolding of what I have no idea. I am still at times gripped by fear of scarcity. But less so. I am sitting in the words of Lao Tzu….’he who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.’

I am watching myself, catching myself in moments of pride, moments when a shadow crosses my soul. What is that darkness that has cast out the light? Sometimes it is a silly thought, an old pattern from aeons ago, sometimes it is my integrity being called into question…for when you really begin to play at the levels of subtle energy, you can get away with naught.

I am open to worlds and worlds of the mystics. I am standing in the space of mystical law. Where my relationship to time and space are warped beyond comprehension. Where miracles are indeed the norm, very ho hum…actually, in the place where if miracles are not happening I am out of harmony with the Universe.

I am opening myself to love. To partnership, deep and profound. And oceans of joy, and dancing, and everything singing in one song. Universe.

I am on the precipice. And the space in front of me is vast, so very vast. The precipice is the place to thrive, and live, the very seat of emergence, the central point of life and vitality.

I am standing in my magnificence like I have never done before. I am opening the space within me, extending it out, far and far. My feet are firmly planted, earth and all of life in full support of the song I have to sing.

I see flickers of beauty, thousands of flickers…the light beings dancing. They are cheering. As are the angels. And the birds. All of life, all of it, wants me to be all of me.

There is only ease, and joy and beauty and infinite ecstasy……and this is the truth.

Lets dance together….

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The Death of Struggle

Monday, November 29th, 2010

The last few years have been very difficult years for me. Starting in around September 2008, the Universe has been conspiring to have me go deep within and look at very long term patterns and beliefs. It is no coincidence that this major shift in me has also aligned with the global economic crisis. Part of my deep inner exploration has involved looking at my relationship to money, my money habits, my sense of my value in the world, or lack of, and the larger system surrounding me, and money. It is also interesting for me to note that this two year deep dive was the very two years building to my half century. Questions raised included questions of age, health, death, and then the big questions…like what am I going to focus on for my next fifty years, what value do I bring, how do I want to show up in the world, and how is my value recognised?

Certainly during this time I have been simultaneously aware of both the pain of this…and the unfolding beauty of the experience, knowing that the end of this particular journey I would be ever closer to my own truth, ever more authentic, ever more at peace with my place in the world.

The most delightful part of this experience is now emerging. And I am both surprised and thrilled to say that I have recognised a pattern that has been so long term and deeply held, and yet so far below my conscious awareness.

That pattern has been a deep belief that life is HARD. Making it (surviving) is HARD. Relationships are HARD.

Fortunately I have been blessed with a very happy disposition, so while my belief was that life is hard, I have faced most days with both fortitude and a positive attitude.

However I have held that 80-90% of life is hard, and that you grab joy when you can.

No longer. While I love a good challenge and some serious problem solving, I am now choosing to see life as mostly wonderful, full of ease, grace, beauty and flow. If we look at nature, there is a beautiful daily reminder of this. Sure, there are cyclones, floods and drought, and the lions eat the lambs, but when nature is left to its own flow state, it takes care of its self very well. After the fire comes renewal. And if there are big, unpredictable events like a comet strike that renders whole species extinct, nature seems to get back to its task of regeneration. The small plant will grow in a rocky outcrop, against the odds. It is the nature of things.

I am now living from the place of life being easy. Making money is easy, surviving is easy. Relationships are easy. This is not a faux belief, but a genuine switch in the core of my belief system. How do I know?…there is no doubt. It just is so. Life is easy, beautiful, flowing filled with grace. Not only is this what I have felt inside, it is what has shown up on the exterior.Grace, ease, flow.

I have an image of the word ‘struggle’ lying bleeding to death.

What a relief. All these years to find that I was wired for ‘hard’. Ughh!! What a waste of effort.

Life is easy, beautiful and flowing. I am surrounded by grace.

I would love to hear from you about your core beliefs that have been guiding you. (Or limiting you.) Also, I would love to hear from people who have lived/ are living a life of ease and flow, emotionally, spiritually and physically.

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