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Beginning of the beginning

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

Well I made it. It was never really in doubt…but here I am, now in the dawn of my 5th decade. What a journey these last few months have been.

On Tuesday, August 31st, 2010, I did finally feel like this was the beginning of the beginning. A new day, a new way of being, a new life. I had the most fabulous day…quiet, no major celebration. It started as a usual Tuesday. A run at 5 am at the track with the boys. The banter was its usual full on. Running with the boys you can be sure if you piss them off in any way, they will tell you immediately. No silent treatment, covert manipulation…just blunt, politically incorrect ‘sock it to me, baby’ truth. I love that. I don’t find the same level of raw truth so common in groups of women. Tiptoeing through land mines of sensitivity feels more like what happens in groups of women.  Maybe I am more of a guy. Heavens knows I have spent most of my life with groups of men.  I have not, to date, been very good at political correctness and heightened sensitivity, although I am working on becoming more so. (The sensitivity part….I will continue to give the whole PC deal a wide berth…I mean please…our opposition leader Tony Abbot being crucified for saying ‘no means no’, because apparently it has something to do with an anti-rape campaign. Here I was assuming that anyone has the right to say ‘no means no’.)

After the run, many calls, emails, and then surprise deliveries later, Natalie and I managed to leave the house and drive to the beach and the cafe for breakfast. A healthy breakfast, I might add. Then from here a ‘girls day out’, just the two of us, mother and daughter, window shopping, something we have not done together for a long time. The temptation to purchase was almost non-existent, something I am loving about becoming UN-addicted to shopping as a result of severe belt tightening.

We lunched on a healthy vegan hamburger with a Corona chaser. One beer in the middle of the day and I was quite tidily. Natalie thought it was very funny. So much so she posted a comment on Facebook, and many other people had a laugh at my expense.

Home to another delivery, this time a big box of “Roses Only”, a dozen long stemmed pink and yellow roses, from my beautiful daughter. (She also gave me an ipad, very spoilt am I.) We had some birthday cake, my mother joined us, and spent some time going through my solar return chart (birthday to birthday)…happily I can report that as long as I do my inner work, it will be a good year, a VERY good year…..a girlfriend delivered some champagne and a voucher for a pedicure, and my mother, my daughter and I left to go to see Burn the Floor, a fabulous and explosive live dance show. Home early, drank some champagne, watched some trash TV (something I rarely do) with Natalie and that was my day. Perfect in every way.

Getting to this point has been a big deal. Not the last 50 years, but the last few months. Long time readers will know I have been on quite a journey…which has included…

*Rekindling a relationship with my feminine. Still a work in progress…

*Releasing anger….this has been a big deal, brought to the surface by a breakdown with a team member in the Kokoda Challenge. After doing extensive inner work with the wonderful support of Cynthia, Laurent and my mother, I came to recognise that I had been born angry. It was as if I did not want to be here, did not want this life, this body, my situation. This at a very deep level, because I love life. How this manifest was not in depression, although I have had brushes with depression, but with a deep vein of anger. A toxic waste site buried somewhere in a hidden corner of my psyche, only bubbling to the surface when things outside got uncomfortable, out of my control, or not the way I wanted it. Looking your own anger square in the eye is quite a humbling exercise. In releasing it I do truly feel like this is the birth of a new me, choosing consciously to be in this life, in this body, in all the good and bad, the beautiful and ugly, the love and the pain. As part of this exercise I also looked  myself in the eye, accepting all of it. ALL OF IT. Phew!!! Three days after a releasing exercise I had a dream. I had been praying for a dream, for guidance, for a few days. I rarely remember my dreams. With an old dog Muffin, I am often up several times a night to tend to her, so I was aware that I was not dreaming at all. Silence. BIG silence. Zero. No dreams. Then exactly three days later (symbolic perhaps of the crucifixion and resurrection?) I dreamt I was shot dead. I woke the moment I died. It felt very real. My daughter and my dog, the two beings I am responsible for the care of, were safe before I died. It did feel like a part of me, an old and icky part of me, had died. It was quite a shocking experience.

*Evaluating my friendships and relationships. I have great and amazing friends. Long term friends…years and years of knowing each other, and some much newer. There are a few critical keys that I cherish about my friends. When there is an upset, we stay in the conversation until resolution. Not compromise…but resolution. I care enough about my friends that if there is an upset, I will speak to them about it, and they with me. We stay clean and clear. And we will go into the dark and murky places if needs be. No one will leave the room, or if they do, only for a short time before they come back. We don’t hold back. There is a deep and open channel of connection. Nothing hidden. As one of my friends of 20 years who I hadn’t seen for some time (she had been living in the UK) said to me…”Christine ever since I have known you I have known that to hang out with you I cannot get away with my shit..ever”(bless you Bronnie)……I like being around people who are the same with me. We don’t get away with our shit together. We do not collude with each other to stay small and safe. We go to the edge…and we are willing to be pushed. There are no guarantee’s of glory or fame, however I do get to look in the mirror and like who I see. Zero bullshit tolerance. And we resonate together…we do not always agree, but we come from the same set of principles, steeped in integrity. AND, we are constantly growing, learning, practicing, applying, seeking the edges. True positive deviants, all. No playing safe.

*As a result of this evaluation, I have recognised that I need to reach out more…to build more relationships with people like this. I can be very introverted, I like the internet, phone and skype, and I don’t do well at networking functions…so my task now is to reach out to more professional and entrepreneurial women in my local community. Men as well,  for at some point it may be nice to have an intimate partnership, and I am not going to meet him if I stay home. (No I am not going to do the internet dating thing…been there, done that, and my intuition says that is not it for me.) Reaching out will also help me from a business point of view, although that is secondary to the prime motivation of meeting like minded people.

A recognition of when I am in flow, connected, and feel the Universe rolling in ecstasy at my feet. This was a big deal, as I was feeling so disconnected and in scarcity. Cynthia helped me with this.  I feel deeply connected when I write…there is a knowing..even though I have no idea what I am going to write before I sit down, and I never know where it is going to go…it is such a wonderful mystery to me… yet I just know that it will be there, and so many times what is there surprises the heck out of me. There is no shortage, or scarcity, or lack…In coaching, same deal. I completely trust, again without having a clue what will happen, where it will go, what will come up, what needs to be said. When I am facilitating groups, without a structure, or agenda. Again, I am in present time, tapped into something else, and there I go..or where I go to find the words I have no idea, but they are there, and the more I trust and let go, the more miracles happen. This is one reason why I cannot do keynotes so well, because I am not so good at preparing…I want to do the Bucky thing, and stand, present, look to the ceiling, look down, open my mouth, and speak. But I a deeply attached to it being about the audience, about what they want..rather than delivering what I think they may want. Therefore, I must engage with them somehow…if anyone has ideas on how to do this and have it be a keynote, let me know…as I have not made the translation yet.

More is unfolding…and I feel deeply excited and peaceful about the future. My wonderful partners in The Constellation, the amazing friends, the incredible relationship with my daughter, my super health and vitality, these are all assets that are priceless. There are books to write, courses to lead, lessons to learn, mountains to climb, marathons to run, people to meet and fall in love with….all of this…

Thank you to you, my readers, for your endurance, interest, and loyalty. I love hearing from you, connecting with you, knowing you. Please write me, leave a comment, and tell me what I am doing well, what you would like more or..less of…etc…or just say hello.

As my daughter says…mum, since you plan to live to 140 healthy, then you are not even half way there. When you are 70 we will have a party, and we will rock the world. I am a late bloomer, it is the beginning of the beginning…

Blessings,

Christine

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Becoming a Jedi Knight

Monday, August 16th, 2010

Following the threads of the last few blogs, in the search to understand and bring to life my feminine, I intuitively picked up one of my reference books, “Goddesses in Everywoman” by Jean Shinoda Bolen. First published in 1984, this book speaks of the deep archetypal patterns found in women. I am wondering where the similar book is for men? (I am a big fan of Dr. Warren Farrell, and his work with men…see The Myth of Male Power…and believe that the women’s movement has created pathways for women to have choice, but men have been left behind. This may be part of the reason why male suicides are so high.) If you want to listen to a great interview with Dr. Farrell and Marc Gafni, free, download it here. http://integrallife.com/FutureofLoveTeleseriesContent

However, male or female, I do believe we all must learn more about the feminine aspect, and I have no doubt that until the feminine is integrated into our systems in a balanced way, then we will continue to create the dysfunctional models that are source for most of our global issues, such as the economy, the environment, and our energy systems.

As we are all fractals of the whole, each of us must work on the balance of our yin and yang energy, men and women both.

In the Goddess In Everywoman, I read about Artemis. Oh dear. I thought I had more of Athena’s qualities. Funny how sometimes you can look at something and just not see the truth because we don’t want to. (I was attached to Athena) Artemis….”as  virgin goddess archetype represents a sense of intactness, a one-in-herselfness, an attitude of “I-can-take-care-of-myself” that allows the woman to function on her own with self-confidence and an independent spirit. This archetype enables a woman to feel whole without a man.” Hmmm…and then there is her contempt for vulnerability….”denies her own vulnerability and NEED for another.” (my capitals). Plus has the ability to go into a destructive rage. “She is more likely angry at man or men in general for depreciating her or failing to treat with respect something she values.” And then there is her inaccessibility. She can disappear, emotionally and physically. Or can be so focused on her task (arrow like precision) that she makes people in her world feel insignificant and excluded. And she can be merciless. I know all of these aspects of myself.

Working with Cynthia I have identified that I have a deep seated abhorrence of being needy. When I say the words, “I am needy” it makes my skin crawl. And speaking to my mother on the weekend, I asked her if I was born angry. My first words were not the usual lovely mummy, or even daddy. Apparently my first words as I rampaged down the corridor after my elder brother, were bugger bugger bugger, and then I was spitting in a continuous and directional sense. My intuition tells me that I was born angry. Pissed off at God. I am guessing that I wasn’t happy about this particular incarnation. I wanted to be someone else, or do something else…maybe hang with the angels, or something. But here I was. Not happy. And have felt this way ever since. Pissed at God. Not always, but its there deep down and does manifest as rage, from time to time…mostly when I feel useless or impotent. And I have often felt depreciated by men…it is part of our corporate culture, like it or not. It feels like I have to prove myself triple times over compared to men.

Jean Bolen then talks about the myth of Atalanta as a metaphor for psychological growth. This story really got my attention. Atalanta was a heroine whose courage and capabilities as a hunter and runner were equal to any man’s. She decided that she was going to choose the man she would marry by asking them to compete with her in a footrace. Any man who could beat her would become her husband. If he lost, he would forfeit his life. (High stakes, not unlike the perils of rejection men still go through to get a mate.) Many races were held, and Atalanta won them all. Finally, the unathletic Hippomenes, who truly loved her, decided to enter. The night before he prayed to the goddess of love, Aphrodite (Venus). She heard him and gave him three golden apples, which he was to throw down one by one, during the race.

Apple 1. The awareness of time passing.

When Atalanta stopped to pick up this apple, she saw herself reflected, distorted by the curves of the apple. She saw herself as old. This got her to thinking about the time that was passing, and her youth that was slipping away. Where was her life disappearing to? And what did the future hold for her?

Ok..so this is close to the bone. With my 50th Birthday in a few weeks, I am knee deep in time/age/speed of life/were am I? Plus I look back at these last 10 years, and the article I wrote when I turned 40, about how life doesn’t work out how we expect, and some of the disappointments I have had…and the joys….and I am aware that I am still angry at God. And I feel trapped in this life. I want it to look different, to feel different. I want to feel ease, and joy, and flow, and connection. Instead I mostly feel struggle, and hard, and like Sisyphis, pushing that eternal rock up hill. Ashtara, astrologer mother, tells me that this feeling is ‘normal’ for a chiron return that occurs at the 50 year mark. Normal or not, it is a muddy place.

Apple 2. Awareness of the importance of love.

As she stopped to retrieve the second apple, memories of her previous love, Meleagar, arose in her. When this combination of time passing and the awareness of the importance of love are awakened, an Artemis woman begins to question her solitary state.

Now this really caught my breath. After having done the work with Cynthia to uncover my skin-crawling dislike of being needy, to even contemplate that I may need a man in my life is very hard to do. Yet somewhere, buried deep under layers of self protection, I sense the truth of this. To be loved and held fondly. Also to admit that I have jealously for the couples I know who have an incredible partnership. And for those couples who have created together a life that allows them the ease of mutual support. This I miss the most…the true partnership of support. Life has felt hard as a single mother, single woman.

Apple 3. Creativity…either as procreation, or as giving birth to some form of personal expression.

The final apple cause Atalanta to lose the race to Hippomenes. This apple caused Atalanta to connect with her urge to create.

As an already deeply creative person, I had to sit with this one. Barbara Marx Hubbard talks about supra sex as the creative urge that lives above and beyond sex. The urge to co-join with another, or others, to give birth to something greater than self. I am doing this with my team in The Constellation.

And yet, there is also a personal expression of mine that is longing to be birthed. And that is to write the novel that lies within me. To have time to disappear from the world, to go somewhere and write for 4 months…this is a dream…and maybe even a need. (Dare I say it?)

According to Jean Shinoda Bolen, if the knowledge of Aphrodite is brought through the love of another person, then an Artemis woman’s one sidedness, however satisfying it has been, may give way to the possibility of wholeness.

Here I am, opening myself to the possibility that I need to open myself to….an intimate relationship…bugger….it comes down to this?

And then there is my long term friend Pauline who talks to me about stillness..and sitting and doing nothing. Now this theme has been a big theme this week. If God were sending me messages, stillness is one of them. There was a conversation about doing vipassana, and sitting in stillness for 10 days…you have to be kidding?…I would go mad…being still for 10 days….then followed by a conversation with Susan Taylor from Generon, about a 7 day Vision quest in the forest, where, wait for it…you sit still for 7 days…and then Pauline, “stop doing, doing doing, and be still”…and then to really put a spanner in the works, I am driving home from a swim session, and the car in front of me has a number plate that reads.. STILL! Ok, ok, I hear you. Be still.

How does one be still? Back to Warren Farrell. He is talking about Yoda, my most favourite animated film character (other than the scrat from Ice Age…the creature who is forever chasing the hazelnut.) Yoda, the Jedi master is teaching Luke to be a Jedi. You bring the force into you first and then you do. The force guides your sword. With the force you can be blindfolded, devoid of normal senses. The force of course, is the feminine. The receptive, open, intuitive, flow state. This metaphor I can get. It is beautiful, and represents everything I would like to become. A Jedi knight.

Presently I am more like the scrat….chasing, chasing chasing with complete focus, blocking all other things out, including the force, after the eternal and forever out-of-reach… hazelnut.

And my favourite quote from Yoda…

No…try not…  do or do not…there is no try…

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In my vulnerability I become invulnerable

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

In my vulnerability I become invulnerable…

These words are from A Course in Miracles, and they have been a guiding light for how I show up in the world, and in this blog.

When I have nothing to hide…no dark places…no deep shame…no place I do not want you to see, or anyone else…when I am completely vulnerable, I am no longer able to be attacked… or ridiculed… or humiliated.

I also am deeply inspired to write these blogs because I have a deep sense that the more I share of my true vulnerability and humanness (messy and flawed), the more I allow you, the reader, to be your messy flawed human self without so much self judgement. It is my hope that you are brought closer to your own beautiful imperfection and grace through the words I write.

I spent some time in dialogue this morning with the extraordinary and beautiful Cynthia McEwen. Cynthia and I met 12 months ago in Brazil. I liked her immediately we met. Since that time we have spent hours every week or so on skype, and the more time I spend with her the more I love her, like her, respect her. This week I put my hand up for support from Cynthia. I needed her wisdom, her grace and her skills to help me with an age old issue of mine that simply must be transmuted if I want the next decade of my life to be wildly and deliciously different than the last.

Long time readers will know me as someone who sees the world as the glass mostly full..I am positive, upbeat, able to laugh at myself and most things. Yet deep inside I have lived with some core stories about myself…like…I am not enough. There is not enough. Life is hard. It is hard. There is another thread of being alone, but this one I am more at peace with, as aloneness is something I enjoy. I rarely feel lonely.

Since I became a mum, nearly 20 years ago, I have felt a burden. A huge burden…the metaphor is Sisyphuss, symbolised in mythology as a man pushing a heavy rock up an eternal mountain, always falling back down every time he nearly made it to the top. Zeus was determined to keep Sisyphus in eternal frustration as a punishment for his hubris. (Yes, I admit to some hubris…centred around a behaviour that I am better than…very similar to the Sisyphus story.)

I am daily blessed for the gift of my daughter. She cracked opened my heart, and our relationship is one of deep love, respect, understanding, friendship and beauty. And yet I have felt this burden, this responsibility to be the provider, the stalwart, the mother, father. The soloist in this journey. Simultaneously, I have desired to build a career, and in so doing seek success.

It has not been an easy path, and for most of it I have felt like it has always been a struggle to make ends meet. In this next decade and beyond of my life I want the experience of plenty, flow, abundance, enough. I want deeply to be connected to source. I question if I am doing something wrong? Mostly I question if I am doing something wrong as I have a recognition of my value offering. What am I doing wrong? Or what is wrong with me?

Cynthia asked me to remember times when I have felt in the flow, connected deeply to source, where there was no effort, enough, plenty, abundance.

We found three places….

….in my writing…when I get out of my head and into my heart in my writing and do not edit, think about getting it right, or make it too intellectual.

…when I teach or facilitate in the moment…what I call group coaching…it is a very dynamic, purely emergent space, where all rules and structures are thrown away and I have to wing it…literally on the wing of a prayer…in total surrender…

…when I coach…listening truly to the other until I as “I” do not exist….

These are the places that I am fully connected, and..for those of you who responded to my post about finding the feminine...these are also the places I am fully in my feminine…

Hmmm…I had never connected the dot that I was in ease, flow, abundance and grace in these places…(the blinding flash of the obvious, or…God’s kosmic joke)

My task for this week is to be present to these states of flow as me being connected to source. To really recognise them, and integrate and embody the experience of connection.

The journey over the next few weeks and months is to bring this state into my life more and more. Not to discard the masculine strategist, planner, goal setter, achiever self for it is useful and necessary, but I have been living the majority of my life with this aspect dominating…but to delegate Sisyphus to the back room, eventually to let him rest in peace.   Really rest….what a joy that will be.

Here is where I would like your help. Just as I have Sisyphus as the image I am leaving behind, what is the image or metaphor I am moving towards? Who is she..what is her name…anyone got an archetypal image of this lady I am becoming? I can’t see her yet? I can feel her…she has been there all along, waiting.

And…I would love to hear from you about where you are connected to source the most…in the flow..surrounded by abundance and ease….

In deep blessing to you,

Christine

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Three wishes

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

Imagine that we can have three wishes granted, on the one condition that they cannot benefit you directly. They have to be wished on behalf of someone else.

What would you wish for?

I sat with this question for quite some time. The answer could have been lazy. I wish for my daughter to have a fabulous and successful career land on her lap. This would benefit me indirectly. Of course I want this for her. But would I spend one of the three wishes on this? What about her journey, the one about uncovering her own truth, growing in wisdom, learning from her mistakes? Would I take this journey away from her?  I am not sure.

This then surfaced my beliefs that each of us are here for a unique purpose, and that within that we have our own gestation rate. Our own journey, which in its way is exquisite, even when it feels like shit.

How about wishing for the war’s to stop globally? Would this be permanent? What is the impulse that causes people to fight and kill each other? Would this impulse go away? Or how about wishing for the impulse to be created in all people to move only from love? Would this do it? Where would the passion be…passion that is inspired by anger? Or would we all be flatlining in bliss, with no shades of light and dark? Again, where would the journey be? Would this mean we would all be flapping around in the garden of bliss, like hippies high on air?

Hmmm..this question is harder than I thought. Every place I turned I found that life just as it is, its horror and its beauty, had some perfection to it, a natural process of emergence. And that in choosing our wishes we need to be mindful of the field effect of our wishes.

Maybe I would wish for all mothers to find peace in their heart if they lose a child. (Including mothers in the animal kingdom.) Why not father’s too? Mothers and fathers.

In my evening prayers I pray for angles to come to ease the pain of children and animals who suffer at the hands of others. The voiceless ones, too young or incapable of choice. Children and animals who have been abused, violated, are sick, hungry, cold, alone…this would be my wish.

I wish for wisdom and reverence in the world. That we leave aside our immature, self serving, entitlement ways, and embrace the truth that we are all one.

What would you wish for? Please share…

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What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

The Summer Day – Mary Oliver – 1992

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean—

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

Writing anything after this seems almost arrogant. How could I possibly speak another word to break the trance of the beauty of this poem.

In my quest to remember the deep feminine part of myself, the ability to  be ‘idle in the fields’ for a whole day sounds so decadent, so alien to the work-a-holic self I have spent years cultivating. I am not sure I could allow myself this luxury. Yet we (in the world of the G20) have become so disconnected for the earth, from nature, from beauty. Always in a hurry, always so much to be done.  We have forgotten how to cultivate a garden, live off the earth, feel the sand/soil/grass beneath bare feet. To do nothing, and in the doing of nothing, be everything.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

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Meeting with Angels

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

Without question my journey has been one to ‘get’ that I am not alone. That the mysterious forces of the Universe are always present, able to offer me guidance, answer any question, sooth an aching soul. Sometimes those mysterious forces come wearing the face of a person. Sometimes it comes through a book, or a movie, or a word from a stranger on TV. Even the guy who cuts me off in the lane as I drive my car has the potential to be my ‘angel’ for today, if I were to stop long enough and see the connection. I do believe that in every moment we are presented with angels to direct and guide us. Some speak in the softest of whispers, others are more direct.

This last week my direct angel arrived in the form of a person. A friend of 17 years, recently returned from a 7 month pilgrimage around the world.

I was describing to Pauline what was going on in my life. I see that on the right hand side of my life I have all of these exciting and amazing projects. For example, following my trip to Brazil last year, a group of us formed The Constellation. The Constellation is committed to evolving the art, science and craft of leadership and enterprise. One of the projects we are working on is the Indigenous Prosperity project here in Australia. This is a large scale issue involving multiple stakeholders, lots of painful history, and various other competing factors. Then we have some other work that is forming, including working on greening the global textile industry. My own pet project is around bringing ‘light’ and an embodied understanding to the global economy. Specifically, to create an experiential workshop that takes place over a few days, with the result that participants leave with an embodied understanding of the global money system. After a quarter of a century of my life given to seek to understand this system myself, I have scarce scratched the surface. However, I now know people who do understand it. These people are rare indeed. Even more rare are the people who understand it and want to bring light to it. My sense if that there is a high investment by those elite few who do understand the global economy and want to keep it, and all of us, in the dark. My intention is to bring a small group of people together for five days, including the people I know who understand the current system from the light side, plus a few other people to bring diversity and perspective, like a cell biologist, etc; and have these people sit in the questions..what do we create, and for whom, and how do we deliver this so that we get a positive field effect? Then to create an experiential game that allows embodied learning and understanding, and a second game that allows the creation of something new. And then of course to deliver this to a select group of people to get the ball rolling.

Here I was, speaking of this right hand side of my life…this future pregnant with possibility and invoking everything I have always wanted to do. My energy was high. I am working with incredible people around the world creating world changing artifacts. It is the work I have dreamed of participating in all of my life, right from the first word out of my mouth.

Then I shifted, but not for long, to the left hand side of my work. The solo work of Christine. Christine and her clients. The experience I am having in this domain is one of being ‘ejected.’ My solo business is not falling away, I am being pushed out. It is remarkable to watch. Yet between that door on the left closing, and the door on the right opening, there is a space. And the space still needs to cover the payment of bills. Funny about that. It can be scary, and after years of living on the edge, very exhausting.

I have recognised at that same time that the very action I take that makes me a good long distance runner, is the action I have been avoiding in my working life. In my running I no longer listen to the resistance. If it is dark and cold, and the bed is warm, I still get up. Like clockwork. Why? Because I know the gain on the other side. Indeed, in the early days I created a little process to get me out of bed. I used to imagine I did get out of bed and go running, while I was still in bed, and at the end of the run, ask myself how I felt. If I felt great for the run, out of bed I would get. The short term pain of getting out of bed was smaller than the long term pleasure of running. I also asked myself how I would feel for the rest of the day if I did not get out of bed. Most of the time the answer to that question was that I would feel awful. Sludgy. Lazy.

In my work the resistance has been around two things predominantly…making calls to people to build business, and writing my book.

Back to Pauline. I had just started to explain to her that I needed to push through my resistance and make calls to people to seek work as the solo Christine.

She stopped me in my tracks. It was completely obvious to her that I was highly energised talking about the right hand side…the collaborative work. My words even got her excited. And, having known me for so long, she knew I was always up to a big game.

She said something of the likes of….you don’t need to make calls to get clients. You need to make calls to find a philanthropist to support your day to day expenses so you can go and do the work around the global economy game, and all of the other ventures. “Just imagine Christine, how much work you could get done if you had time to focus on this 100%?” And more…”Do I value myself enough to consider that this work is important and that someone would be only to happy to support me because they too see the value?”

Needless to say, she did stop me in my tracks. A sledge hammer would be an elegant description.

A little more context. As long time readers will know, my whole life has been quite a solo act. I have supported myself, provided for my daughter, and done it quite well. However, the measure I have had for myself is no less than…hmm..someone like Richard Branson! So from that perspective, I have been terrible. It has taken me years to reconcile that I am not a natural business person. My skill, which I do acknowledge I have, is elsewhere. Sadly we live in a society where a person’s worth is often measured by how successful they are at amassing money. The solo journey has been my journey. Indeed, the inner narrative I have had for myself is that “I need to make it on my own in order to be worthy (in my eyes).”

So I never took the hand of the man/ men who offered me a place in their castle, surrounded by glittering jewels. I didn’t want to be someone’s princess. I wasn’t looking for the knight. “If there was a mercedes in my drive way, it was because I put it there!” was the metaphor I used.

So on I have struggled….only to continually learn, in ever finer distinctions, that no one ever does anything on their own. Ever…

Of course the other side to this little story of my life is the struggle to find the balance of the feminine and the masculine. My energy has been so strongly masculine that it is no surprise that I push away any possibility of an intimate male/female partnership…a long term relationship with a man.

Today my natural choice is to work with people. I want to partner with. I love the feel of true synergy. I like the fun of it, and the challenge. And just the sheer wonder of what is possible.

Pauline suggests I ask for support..for someone, probably a man, to take care of my living costs while I go create.

She asks me if I would consider supporting myself if I was the person on the other side listening to me, and I had money. Yes, no question…in fact for the last few months I have declared as part of my future that the investments I would like to make with any spare cash I have, is not in the usual bricks and mortar, or shares, but in people just like me who are committed to adding value to the whole world.

Her suggestion of course presses all of my buttons…all of them…right down to the very cells under my toenails. This is a different type of support than the usual male/female support. This is allowing me to get on with what I know I am to do, and be supported to do it. Ouch…in my heart and soul I know she is speaking to some truth that goes clunk, the resonance is without question. Yet my mind spins, as I never, ever considered this. I don’t even begin to know what to do…and how…to ask..gasp…to be taken care of…gasp…while I get on with my work…!!

First thought is to actually allow myself to accept and receive that I am of worth to have this happen. That this would truly be a relationship based on value, for both parties. No unresolved male/female issues…power issues…

Next…well…my plans are to write up a bit more about what I am proposing…but in truth, I think I just need to start speaking to people about what I am spontaneously aroused to do..which is to create the experiential game around the global economy…and ask…simply ask, for support. (Now that is hard)

Finally, as I was about to post this, another angel called me. We discussed what I have written. Lindley then talked about me accessing the divine feminine, which goes back to my last blog post. As part of my daily practice, to sit and connect with the feminine within me. To invite her to speak through me, live through me. As you know, this is all very foreign territory to me…and…it really feels so very very right. I have denied the feminine in me for so very long.

Deep breath…and as Lindley reminded me, in the words of T.S. Elliot, costing no less than everything….I take a step…

Any thoughts…suggestions?

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Transitions

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

Love change, love change..I have been self employed for 25 years because I am unemployable, and I am unemployable because I love change. (and being the creative entrepreneur in control) I am not so good at changing my address, but everything else…

For the last 14 years my income source has been via my coaching – one-on-one and groups. This has been the most remarkable gift to me. To do work that makes your heart sing. I feel very blessed for everything coaching has brought me. Friends around the world I love, an amazing learning journey, a skill and craft that has taken me from being a very rough diamond to having a heart. Amazing clients. Incredible adventures. Each year of my coaching journey has been an evolving one, so the change has continued.

But the Universe is asking me to play a different game now. Transcending and including coaching. It is very exciting. I am not afraid of what I am moving towards, that is very energising. I do have some fears about the space between. How the transition will be resourced.

My life always comes down to the point of trust and surrender. For many years I have asked God/spirit to be my business partner. I have recently realised I have been a lousy partner, for my trust in my partner has been so low. The deal now is that whenever the fear grips me and I contract I have to breath and return to trust. Or as the Course in Miracles says, “There is no order of difficulty to miracles” Anything and everything is possible.

Interestingly, in my daily practice, I usually draw a Zen taro card. Something to contemplate for the day. Sometime last week it was clear to me that I needed to use a different card deck. Now I  can be way too practical and un-fussy for my own good. I have been inspired by my friend Lindley, who is an ex-corporate banker, current CEO of a very successful Australasian firm and who is a lover of the Celtic mythic entities. Faeries and such. Synchronistically, reading Caroline Myss’s blog a few weeks ago she asked her readers to consider where did enchantment live in their lives? Caroline, a big fan of Alice in Wonderland, has a house full of Alice characters. Me, my enchantment is in a box under lock and key, buried in the basement. It seems it is time for me to bring it out, and to eject some of my rigidity around fussiness and the magical and mystical.  So out came the faery card deck. And I love it. (Well that may be obvious to you, but not to me!)

Of course, I adored reading the Bitterbynde Trilogy, three novels by Australian author Cecelia Dart Thornton. All about the celtic mythological realm. And I am not alone in my love of Tolkien, and Harry Potter and the Twilight series. This is how I allow my expression of enchantment to live, secretly devoured under covers and between the pages of wonderful books. Snuck in somewhere between the intellectual, political and economics books!  Interesting isn’t it that the biggest best sellers of all time involve the mythic world?

To reinforce further any form of mistake in the scheme of things, one of my archetypal characters is the mischievous imp. A small sprightly faerie like character. This character rarely comes out, but my good friends know her well.  And…would you know it, my team for the Kokoda Challenge 2010, well, we are called the Victory Sports (our sponsors) Sprights! OK, you are now rolling around on the floor laughing!

Finally, the novel that is wanting to be written by me features angels! Not even I knew that until I put pen to paper. I have only written two pages, but I know the story lives and needs to be born.

So we have unleashed the enchantment box, and this blog is going in a very different direction to the one I thought it was going to. I suspect that these sprightly characters needed unleashing. And I need to give them due respect.

Circling back. I am in transition, in the space in between, and it seems obvious that I am supported by all sorts of mischief.

What am I up to…

Well, last year was birthed The Constellation. From this little seed that came together so remarkably well we are now working on some very incredible projects. Global projects that look at evolving whole systems. The people we are dancing with have amazing leverage and influence. It is like a giant tapestry is being woven, and the threads are all coming together in the most breathtaking way. I really can feel it.

On top of this, we are birthing from within The Constellation a new way of being in business together. One of my pet projects has been to unfold a new model of business. The one we have is 410 years old, created by Queen Elisabeth 1 to build the East India company, and is all about limited liability. Well, we are about 100% responsibility.

Crafting this new model of business in its own right is very exciting to me.

Within in this, my own little project is about creating an experiential game around the money system. This is a massive piece of work, with implications beyond this blog. If you want more details, let me know.

Plus…(There is more? Well it is a major transition, and I do like to play)….we are working on my rebranding. Its a subtle shift, but very aligned with who I am.

All my life and in most of my writing the continued theme is integrity. We are positioning me to be the authority on integrity. The Chief Integrity Steward. I will work with influential people, entrepreneurs, celebrities, rising stars, elite athletes, executive teams and boards, on their integrity. Building it, restoring it, maintaining it. My role will be mentor, advisor, confidant, and coach. It is actually what I have been doing for a while, but under the coaching banner.  Open any newspaper and there is no question that there is a need.

We are working on the business model around this…in the mean time, let me know your thoughts, suggestions, ideas.

So there you have it…major change, major transition, and all the while, off with the faeries…I love it…isn’t life delicious?

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Do we live in a sufficient Universe?

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

What if there is more than enough for everyone? And you not only believed it, you lived it?

In an earlier article I talked about our societal enmeshment in the scarcity principle. We are so caught up in the model of scarcity without even knowing that we are caught.

Fear of our own security and protection, and of having ‘enough’ drive most of our thinking, acting and being. The tragedy is that this fear is so ‘normal’ we do not even know we are in it.

In my life so far as I have worked to release myself from the grip of the illusion of scarcity, I have had good days and bad days.

Good days are days when I am connected to source. I feel positive, optimistic, and I see abundance.

Bad days are when I have fear running. There is not enough…money, time, love, years, sleep, time, money…did I mention those?

Last week I thought about this question…

What if there was more than enough for everyone? More than enough food, air, water, time, love, money, sleep, safety, comfort….?

This then raised the next question…is it true that there is enough?

Well, lets look at that.

Is there enough time? Yes…we get to choose how we spend our time doing what matters. The illusion of not enough time is simply an illusion. If you have 15 minutes to get ready in the morning it will take you 15 minutes. If you have an hour, it will take you an hour.

Is there enough energy? Yes…despite the propagation of fear around our energy supplies, we have more than enough energy from the sun and other renewable resources to give every person on the planet more than they will need. The gap between our technology efficiency is diminishing every day.

Is there enough money? Yes..this is a really interesting question, and in my unequivocal answer of yes I have to give a bit more detail to a quite complex issue. At one level, if you think of money as the stuff (mostly electronic) that circulates the globe every day, is there enough for every human on the planet to live well? Certainly. Some hundreds of trillions of dollars, which is so much that no one really can grasp it.  Problem is that the money gets pooled in a few places, and doesn’t really circulate. When we sit on our foot for a while and then stand up, our foot doesn’t function because the circulation has been cut off. Similarly, pooling money in a few places on the earth body doesn’t allow healthy function. We get stagnation, decay and breakdown in certain areas.

Money also gets directed to other places with questionable value, like the money spent on weapons of killingry. If this money was directed towards livingry, as Bucky would say, hunger would be solved world wide in a matter of weeks.

And if we took responsibility for out health, as I mentioned in an article last week, that would also free up huge amounts of money to be directed to other areas that are in need.

So there is no shortage of this stuff called money.

To get just a little more below the surface of this issue, if we look at what we do on a day to day basis that adds value to the world, is there enough value to be added that warrants an exchange of value? In other words, do you do work that adds real value? (Moving derivatives around the world on a computer does not add real value.) If you are working at something that adds value to others, then there is always the place for exchange.

How about food? Is there enough food? Certainly for some people in the world there is not enough food. However, that is not because there is not enough food globally, but that there is not enough food locally. Again, the system is stagnated. In parts of the world we are dying of obesity, in other parts we are dying of starvation. We criticize the Wall Street bankers for greed while the middle and lower class suffer, but are we any better? We stuff our faces with too much food while our cousins in other parts of the world die of hunger. Is this not also greed? As is stuffing our faces with food that has little to no nutritional value and becoming unhealthy. Just another form of greed.

And water, is there enough? Again, in some places water is a scarce resource. But when we finally learn to manage our resources in a respectful and healthy way, we have enough water. Bucky created homes in the 1940’s that managed on several liters of water every day for all house hold chores. Its not the lack of water that is the issue, its our carelessness in its use.

What I began to realise as I thought about this question was that there is enough. The key  is to stop thinking locally only, and to start to consider our global actions.

At a global level there is enough money, food, water, energy….we do live in a sufficient Universe. Sure we need a game change, but there is enough.

The scarcity principle is a myth of seeing ourselves as isolated, as individuals competing for. When we step back and look at the whole, starting with Universe first, we see that there is enough. That if we work together, collaborate, share, care for each other, there is more than enough.

Does this collaborative and comprehensively considerate action allow for creativity, individualism, personal success, entrepreneurialism? Is there a space for this? Yes…there is so much to learn, and explore and discover about how we inhabit our earth in a way that is sustainable for all. There are so many wonderful things we have yet to create that will enrich lives everywhere. It is time for the biggest hit of creativity innovation ever. But this doesn’t mean that I get to create and you get to go hungry.

And before you jump to conclusions, I am not talking about socialism here. I am talking about something that allows creativity, entrepreneurialism and such, but without the gluttony, and certainly without it costing others their health, money, environment and livelihood. Truly, how many cars, or houses, or TV’s , or ?? is enough for one person?

Scarcity is based on win/lose. I win, you lose. I eat, you go hungry.

Sufficiency is based on win win win. I win, you win, the family, the nation, the environment..wins.

Having considered all of these questions I decided that I do indeed live in a sufficient and abundant Universe. There is enough, more than enough.

Now the question gets down to the next level, below the scarcity and into my worthiness.  Do I allow myself to experience enoughness? No just intellectually, but in an embodied way? Am I worthy of enough?

I will keep you posted on this one. Let me just say its a big one.

In the mean time, I ask you to really consider that we do….you do…I do…live in a sufficient Universe. If this is true, and you really do believe it is true, how will you show up differently?

How would you act, think, believe and behave differently knowing that there is enough?

And what area do you feel the most lack? Love, money, time, sex, security, friends, intimacy….?

Do ask yourself of this is true…really true that there is lack in this part of your life?

Let me know your thoughts, opinions, questions, experiences..


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What Lies Beneath?

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

Over the Easter weekend my beautiful little dog of 13 years, Muffin, went missing.

She had just had a bath and so was without any from of ID. Her normal collar has her name and our phone number on it. How she got out, I have no idea. She has never escaped before.

Muffin is mostly blind and deaf, and suffers dementia. She has good days and bad days. Working with her wonderful Vet, we have chosen to allow her to let us know when she is ready to leave us. I trust myself enough to know that I will know when she says in her own way that it is time.

When I went to check on her, which I do regularly, and found she was gone, I searched everywhere. I was not sure if I could trust my sense of sight and hearing…was she really gone. I found myself looking in the same places multiple times in case I had not seen her the first time.

I called my daughter to come home and help me search. We looked everywhere. We both looked in the same places …again…not trusting our senses. Did we possibly miss something?

Maybe she had run away to lie down and die? I was not sure if I was looking for her alive or dead.

We called the dog pound, which took perseverance. Ninety minutes of waiting on hold to get through. Apparently their busiest time of the year. One staff member. I found out later that this is a paid position of the local council, and that they do not accept volunteers to man the phones for missing or lost dogs. (I would have volunteered…unfortunately our society these days makes volunteering complex…will it take away from someone’s paid position…or do we need expensive insurance…so tragic and outright wrong!)

We walked the streets and talked to neighbours. At some point we didn’t know what else to do. After a time, we went out and looked again…did we miss her the first time?

And we cried. And cried.

For me it was as if someone had turned on a tap of grief and a bunch of years of held back tears came flooding out. Almost as if I needed some external event to allow a flood of suppressed emotion to explode.

I could reconcile with her dying. The difficulty I was having was that I didn’t know where she was. I didn’t know if she was suffering, lost, dazed, confused, distressed. Mostly I didn’t want to think of her dying alone.

And this is the key for me. My deeply buried sense of aloneness. I rarely get lonely. I like being on my own, like my own company… but the feeling of being alone…this has been with me most of my life.

At the same time it has been the core of my inner work. If I were a God and designing my life, and part of that life was to learn that ‘aloneness’ is my own illusion, then I would probably write a script that looks like my life.

Christine “Independent, capable, resourceful. One early marriage that lasted 3 years. One child, not by conscious design. No major male support figure in the equation. Needs to develop self reliance and the ability to create. Struggles with trusting that Universe will provide if she stays in her truth. Underline. Struggles with trusting that Universe will provide if she stays in her truth. Life lesson (at least the biggest one so far). To learn that she is not alone. She has many people to support her. Her family, her daughter, precious friends, amazing strangers, teachers alive and dead, the metaphysical, nature, beauty… And of course God (Universe, Great Spirit, the divine, the creative impulse…call it what you will.) This, above all else. Because in this script, the main character, Christine, seeks a  union with the divine above any other union. And so of course as part of this play, we would make the achievement of this union to be the ultimate struggle. And in the embodied realisation of this union, the aloneness would no longer be present. Instead, she would be in the same place as her beloved Hafiz, dancing in ecstasy with the all knowing sense of at-one-ment.

In the mean time, Christine’s archetype plays out the Bambi story. Abandoned. Alone. Even though this emotion is so well held in check. Years of practice in projecting independence and resilience. “I can manage on my own just fine, thank you very much!”

And, most of the time she can. Most of the time….”

So there were tears. And an awareness to keep moving, for sitting surely would allow more grief to overcome me. I made a cake. I cleaned. I watched ‘The Godfather’ movie. I spent hours going over in my mind the morning’s events. What happened? When did I last see Muffin? Touch her? Register her presence? I realised that I was not very present most of the morning. I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t remember when I last saw her.

I was aware that this must be what it feels like to have a child go missing. In truth, for us animal lovers, our pets are our children. We love them as much. Maybe we have a little more detachment because we always knew that their lives would be far shorter than a human. Yet the pain is the same.

Missing sleep, functioning on auto pilot, moving one foot in front of the next, I moved into Sunday. Then we got a phone call from the pound. She had been found. Someone had found her in the street outside our house. They had just dropped her off. Natalie and I were in our car and off to collect her.

We cried again when we saw her. She was distressed, dazed. But she knew it was us. It took about 6 hours to get her to calm down. 24 hours before she started eating. She is back now to her normal self. And while her days are numbered, we have made a pact that when her time is up, she will die with us present. Not alone. I will be ready for that.

As to me, the journey continues to end my separation from the divine.

Tripping over Joy

What is the difference

Between your experience of Existence

And that of a saint?

The saint knows

That the spiritual path

Is a sublime chess game with God

And that the Beloved

Has just made such a Fantastic Move

That the saint is now continually

Tripping over Joy

And bursting out in Laughter

And saying, “I surrender!”

Whereas, my dear,

I am afraid you still think

You have a thousand serious moves.

Hafiz, Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

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Assertive Communication and Integrity in the Workplace -Part Two

Monday, March 29th, 2010

It has been a shock to me to realise I need to learn assertive communication! Following my last article “On what price Integrity in the workplace?” several things have happened to cause a delicious internal shift. Don’t you love those…where clarity pops out of the blue? Even better, when a friend or random person or event shows up and gives you the exact jolt you need?

It is true that the existing model of business has a very obvious “boys club”, where membership is about ego posturing and status seeking with a secret membership code that includes high doses of testosterone (and may include women with high doses of testosterone as well), a lot of “talk” and bluster (also known as piss and wind), often a high dose of intellectual BS, and regularly some quite under-hand activities where membership will protect their own by becoming complicit in some “not so quite above board operations”. (All the way to some very extremely crafty and illicit activities…think Enron and Lehman Brothers)

However, I was aware that if the existing reality gets up my nose, then that is my stuff, not the current system. Or as Buckminster Fuller said, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

So I have been sitting in the question, “What new model can I create?”  and “How can I bring more value and relevance to the senior team within corporate business in a way that invites only the recognition of that value?”

When I ran the Six Foot Track in the Blue Mountains on the 13th March 2010, I had the experience of sitting behind a group of people on a very narrow downhill trail, feeling like I was trapped and unable to move. The feeling was my own wrong perception. When finally I had had enough of running more slowly than I would have liked, I politely asked if I could get passed. People where happy to oblige. They would have been happy to oblige at any time, if only I had asked. I was trapped in my mind. I needed to learn assertive communication. (Which is very funny, considering I often have to put a leash on my natural assertiveness.)

Then out of the blue a week ago, late one afternoon, I got a phone call from my friend and colleague in The Constellation, Lindley Edwards. Lindley is ex Macquaire Bank (the deep south of Australia’s boys club) and is now the CEO of a Venture group throughout Australia and Asia. She knows about the ‘group mind’ that occurs when testosterone and ego’s mix in the heady halls of money and power. (And on one level, it is as if really smart, good men (and some women) fall under some collective spell when they get together in this way. The ego, the testosterone, the power, the games…it becomes intoxicating and addictive.)

Rather than focus on the existing reality, I wanted to focus on what in me was limiting me within this model. Who did I need to be for my view and world to be different?

Lindley said I simply needed to invite myself to the table. (Learn assertive communication!) To not wait for the invitation, and to certainly not feel resentful when I wasn’t invited. It was the Six Foot Track experience. I needed to simply say I was coming through. To be proactive, assertive without being aggressive, firm and aligned. And to know that the value and perspective I bring is essential. We all know that the balanced perspective of the yin and yang is what is desperately needed. Not just Yin, and not just Yang. Both. The Western world has been suffering from way too much yang. Too much burn and churn, not enough reflection, consideration, care.

As we were talking, I was aware that the limiting part of me was the part that didn’t feel worthy enough. In the model of society today, it is the ‘dragon slaying’ that gives us the right. How much money you have, or stuff you own; or, who you work for, or what empire you have created, or best seller you have written.

At the same time, I was also aware to honor the values I do bring.

1. Comprehensive Integrity, applied with rigor and love. Where people cannot get away with petty games, ego posturing, their small BS selves, and the more extremes of incongruence, outright lies, win lose, deception etc. On this point I do not need to learn assertive communication. I have it in spades.

2. Health and vitality of mind, body, spirit, relationships, and time. There are no hero games where he or she who ‘is’ their work, wins. We work hard, AND have a healthy exercise and diet, AND spend time with our loved ones, AND take regular contemplation breaks, celebrate life, be inspired by other artists. Pause, Breath. Again no requirement for learning or applying assertive communication in these domains.

3. Positive Deviant creative thinking and being. Ask a better question, challenge assumptions, seek always to find the way that walks with integrity.

4. Systemic thinking. The ability to start with Universe first, to see/feel/get the bigger picture. And to be able to bring this down into the field in a highly pragmatic way.

5. The ability to get on with it and ‘ship’ as Seth Godin says in his wonderful book, Linchpin. Roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty. Take great thinking and build models.

That instead of feeling resentful about why I was not being invited to the table, to invite myself, knowing that what I have to bring is very needed, and usually missing. And if what I have is not wanted, truth is I probably need to find a different table to join, because it is highly unlikely that this table will move beyond the current model.

Moving forward…no more energy spent on resentment of what is. (Resentment is such a nasty, insidious, toxic emotion.)

Time now for a deep recognition of value and the willingness to own that by inviting participation, not because the other view or position is  wrong, but because it may be incomplete without the perspective I, and other women bring.

What do you think? Is it time? Are you up for this? Do we need more yin to the yang?


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