Archive for the ‘Dreams’ Category

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Desire is desirable

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

There is a secret to human nature that we all work with, but few can clearly articulate. Desire never stops. You will never be so satisfied with everything that the thoughts and desires end. We are designed to expand. We expand by desire.

Our taste buds will always crave  sweet, salty and sour. Our skin desires touch, warmth, delicate textures. Our eyes will always desire to look upon beauty. We will never stop desiring the smell of delicious food cooking, flowers blooming, the earthy salty smells of the forest and ocean. We will forever desire the tunes of music, the divine orchestra that is nature sounds, the sound of the words ‘I love you’ or more powerfully still moans of a lover.

Desire is desirable. Desire is desirable in a lover, in a spiritual seeker, in a child. Desire drives us forth in everything we do.

Desire has a bad name these days though. Chocolate biscuits alone will make some break out in a cold sweat, they are so used to denying their desire. Others who indulge their desires give desire an equally bad reputation. To make it worse society deems some desires inappropriate. Or appropriate for some and not others. Religion confuses the matter to make things worse, some (well most) seem to have an anti-desire stance. Other tout the transformational power of our desires. (I like to listen and learn from these folk.)

Desire alone is not an issue. Unchecked, misunderstood desire and attachment to what we desire, is what drives us mental. The logistics of handling your desires so as they don’t become destructive forces in your life is the tricky part. Blind desire will rarely produce more than a disappointing burst of pleasure. Blind desire produces disappointment and more blind desire.

‘We cannot hope to attain our goal of universal and complete happiness by systematically making ourselves more and more miserable.’ – Lama Yeshe

Delving into the depths of my desire, eyes wide open, heart soft and compassionate, with honed awareness seems to be the only sane thing to do. So bring on the chocolate cake, ocean breezes and amazing nights of passion!

What I know for sure:

  • Desire is endless
  • Desire is powerful
  • Denied desire can feel like a cage
  • Suppressed desire can be dangerous
  • Desire mindfully lived can be so beautiful it breaks you apart
  • You will never control what it is you desire. You can witness it, indulge it, deny it but not choose it.
  • All desire is equal. Whether you desire a partner or chocolate – desire is desire.

Desire is desirable.

I would love to hear what you desire. What are you longing for, yearning for deeply? World peace? The best ever lemon tart? The partner of your dreams?

Posted in Dreams, Grace, Inspiration, Life | 2 Comments »

Average, everyday gorgeousness

Monday, June 14th, 2010

Having started my 21.5.800 challenge this week you might be hearing from me a little more often. 800 words is quite  a lot. The execution is lovely, don’t get me wrong, but if I ‘save’ up all the blog posts I am writing they will be old, crusty and irrelevant by the time I post them.

Today was a perfectly ordinary day. I really mean that - perfectly ordinary.

There is such pressure today to be extraordinary, exceptional, a rock star, untemplated. We are obsessed with breaking molds, smashing records, shattering limitations, exceeding expectations. We honour the rare moments of triumph to the exclusion of all else. We gloss over the journey, dust over the ugly and the small that built our pinnacle. Despite our obsession with individual pursuits of raging success, we maintain that relationships, people and love are the sweetest, most important parts of life.

This seems like a disconnect to me. If our relationships are the part of life we treasure most then why aren’t we obsessedwith cultivating compassion and forgiveness? Why are we encouraging and feeding our egotism as opposed to our humility, mercy and kindness?

Has our obsession with ‘being exceptional’ impaired our ability to appreciate the ordinary? Have we forgotten that the journey is what is important? Have we lost the ability to really bear witness to the baby steps of others? Have we lost the ability to be happy in the moment?

Today was a perfectly ordinary day. I was present all day. I was present folding the laundry and cooking minestrone, in the moment giving cuddles and having heart to heart talks. Simple ordinary occurrences. The beauty in the everyday ins and outs of my life is heartbreaking. That beauty is only available in the moment, and my ego striving for something better takes me away from the moment.

I think I would like to be exceptionally ordinary. I want to appreciate the average, everyday gorgeousness of my life. I want the eyes to see that beauty; I need the heart willing to truly inhabit the moment.

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After a While Wednesday

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

After a while…

…I will realise that everybody is struggling within themselves to be the best they can be

…I will forgive myself my mistakes

…I will get used to early mornings

…I will come to grips with the transformative power of honest emotions

…I will learn that licking the bowl invariably makes me feel sick

…I will return to my better self

…I will quieten the inner critic long enough to think clearly about the future

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After a while…

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

The following poem was a life-saver to me when I was in a really black hole. There is a tremendous amount of power, wisdom and hope in its words. Power, wisdom and hope that became the light at the end of the tunnel when there seemed to be no other.

At the moment I, and some of my dearest girlfriends, are having a pretty crap time. Yes, we are doing what we choose. Yes we are walking in the general direction of our dreams. Yes there is forward motion. But it feels like we are walking slowly into the wind up a damned big hill. (The fact that is feels like we are walking hand in hand helps though.)

I have heard myself, and my besties, say ‘why did no-one tell us it would be like this?‘ too often in recent months. I guess nobody told us because we would have chickened out, run or laughed in their face. I am clinging to the sentiment that these dark periods are normal, natural and necessary. Thrashing around in a cocoon is necessary for a butterfly to be strong enough to fly when the time comes.

With that in mind, and permission from the author (she gave me permission years ago and I had not had the right occasion, till now) I give you After a while

After a while you learn the subtle difference

between holding a hand and chaining a soul

And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning

and company doesn’t always mean security

And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts

and presents aren’t promises

And you begin to accept your defeats

with your head up and your eyes ahead

with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child

And you learn to build all your roads on today

because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans

and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn that even sunshine burns

if you get too much.

So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul

instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure

that you really are strong

and you really do have worth

And you learn and you learn

with every goodbye you learn …

Copyright 1971 Veronica A. Shoffstall.

Image credit

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Wednesday Wishing…

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

I am not feeling very wordy today. I know, did you fall off your chair? (I have been looking for the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse all morning surely it is a sign of the end of the world.) I am sitting in 3 layers on my couch playing and reading books with my little man. I am resisting the urge to put the heater on because it is simply so guilt ridden. And perhaps I don’t feel like repeating ‘don’t touch’ a centillion times until I scream.

I am sitting here with my little man and wishing… I wish:

…my house was warmer

…it was wet OR cold. Not wet AND cold

…that my girlfriends lived closer

…that my floors swept themselves

…that I could sit all day and watch DVDs

…that I had a wad of cash that I could use to actualise any number of the little projects floating in my head

…that I was inspired to write

…that I was still in bed

Ok that is enough wishing from me. What do you wish?

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Posted in Dreams, Life | 2 Comments »

What is dying to be born?

Friday, April 30th, 2010

At first look this question is lightweight. It isn’t the transformative powerhouse that, has effectively had me floundering, meditating, pondering and writing for over a week. Danielle LaPorte is sheer dynamite. At a time where I am floundering to figure out who I am, again, she was the perfect find online; a default, distant, online mentor of sorts. Bless her. (Her answer to this question was so much clearer than mine, for now)

A few weeks ago she addressed the following question on her blog: What is dying to be born? Wow! Fuck! Ummm…. There are so many questions and assumptions inherent in those 6 words.

It suggests that there is something dormant that simply must become manifest. It suggests urgency – that unless it is born this potential will wither and die. It assumes every act of creation is also an act of destruction. It assumes chaos and balance. It suggests we are all vessels carrying something, all midwives to something unique.

In my experience birthing is natural and blissful with support and a just right environment. What needs to die to create that environment are my fears, my feelings of inadequacy, my playing small. What in me is dying to be  born? ‘My potential’, ‘my inner goddess’ and my ‘higher self’ are all true but too cliché to be meaningful. What is dying to be born of me is my true voice; in my actions, lifestyle, my writing. A voice I wont apologise for.

In the broader sense, what is dying to be born? Reverence for femininity to rival our worship of masculinity. Understanding of the power of sexuality. Respect for the art and science of conception, birthing and nurturing our children, our selves and our dreams. These are dying to born of us collectively and I hope to play midwife in my own small way.

What is dying to be born?

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Youthful mis-perceptions

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

A dear friend posted a blog asking us what out 16-year-old self would think about our lives now. My 16-year-old self wouldn’t think anything about my life now. She would be seeing red, steam pouring form here ears busily hating on and writing off my life. No, I am not kidding.

My 16 year old self was a feminist & punk. I happily sported a leather dog collar, totally clueless as to its BDSM symbolism of submission (something in my naivety I would have considered anti-feminist). I was a card-carrying member of a radical political organisation, who believed that ‘awareness’, achieved via protests and the liberal use of soap boxes, was the answer to all life’s ills. I despised the suburban life and the ‘white picket fence’. I flatly refused to cook believing that is was a shackle that kept modern women attached to the feminine mystique and preferred to be addressed as ‘Conrad’ because it was genderless, and as such freed me from gender stereotyping.

I was convinced that I would never marry. Not only because I thought of the institution of marriage as unnecessary (we at least some things never change), but because I aspired to running my relationships the way ‘men did’ – all satisfaction and no commitment. After all the feminist way is to live my life the way a man would, only better. Right? I intended on adopting one child later in my career orientated life. Adoption, because there are plenty of orphans that require love and care, and also because I believed the pain of labour and the inconvenience of pregnancy to be an unfair burden on women.

In short my 16-year-old self was wrong in so many ways. She simply didn’t have the references or framework to apply her feminist views to the real world. She thought feminist was to be devoid of femininity and to shun inherently feminine experiences.

She would disown me now. She, like many a young woman, wanted true equality in life but had no role-models to show her how. She would judge my choice to marry, to have a baby, to exit the work force to raise my son, to live in the suburbs, to cook daily and whole heartedly support my family. She would say my choices are not my own, that I have allowed society to dictate my role and thus devalue my true worth. And she would be wrong. But she earned me my freedom. Her investigations into the power dynamics of society bestowed me the room to make my choices consciously – the real gift of feminism.

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Three Reluctant Cinderellas

Friday, February 5th, 2010

I grew up very cynical about love, and men in general I guess. Marriage to me was an outdated institution that held no real meaning or value any more (I mean women can own property now and all). Most people exchange their ‘I do’s’ oblivious to the irony that family or familia originally meant ‘the totality of slaves belonging to any one man’. Without dredging up the old revolutionary rhetoric of my youth it suffices to say that a marriage certificate was never on my to do list.

It seems that about 6 months ago the world turned on it’s axis. And pigs flew. And hell froze over. Cupid took control and wreaked his special kind of havoc in our lives. Not just mine, but the lives of my best friends as well. Under cupid’s rule we were thrust into the center of a delicious kind of chaos that we each dreaded and relish at the same time; Love. Romantic love.

None of us are particularly sappy women. I would happily walk through the valley of death with these two women because I am confident that the three of us would be the baddest crew in the valley. None of us are untouched by tragedy or sacrifice. We don’t play the fool, the damsel or the victim and none of us ever believed the hallmark ideal or in happy endings. But it seems as though we will play Cinderella despite ourselves.

Six months ago I set a wedding date. No need for congratulations, I had already been engaged for over 3 years at that point, I just finally bit the bullet and decided to go through with it. Around the same time one of my best friends walked away from an AMAZING career and chose another path, which has led her though a whirlwind romance with a wonderful man. I mean she has been hired twice, sight unseen, on the strength of her resumé alone and yet has flourished despite her career being demoted in her list of priorities. And just last week my other BFF replaced her 10 year title as ‘Girlfriend’ with the shiny new one ‘Fiance’ despite never expecting to marry her wonderful beau.

I don’t know where cupid is going with all this, and I can’t speak for the others, but I hope that I manage to make my wedding something meaningful to me. Something that reflects my relationship with myself and my partner. I won’t be saying ‘I do’ but instead agreeing to kick his sorry ass when he needs a reality check and promising not to walk away when our ugliness comes out, which it inevitably will in a long-term relationship. I hope in those few minutes before we walk down the aisle (my friends are also bridesmaids, of course) that I don’t feel alien in my Ivory dress and my Cinderella moment, but instead feel the dawning of a new age; where fulfilled women choose evolved relationships with worthy men.

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Posted in Dreams, Femininity, Grace, Life, Relationships, Womanhood | 1 Comment »

A decade ago today…

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

Your whole world can change in a minute. A second, even. A single decision can shape your life. Or at least I used to think so. Now days before the ‘noughties’ comes to a close I’m not so sure.

A decade ago, today, I was faced with the biggest challenge of my life. No I am not talking about a regular rite of passage either. It was traumatic. I knew right then that my life had changed forever. But it took days, months and even years for the fallout to settle and for all of the consequences to manifest. I spent years putting my life back together. I was certain, absolutely certain, that some of the changes were irrevocable. I was sure, and told many times, that this one event would define and dominate my life forever. That a decision (made by someone else no less) had changed me.

We were wrong. The tragedy has been totally erased from my life. All that remains are faint physical scars. Yes I have been changed by the experience. I am stronger and wiser than I would have been otherwise. But the essence of who I am, and indeed, who I was always going to be never changed. The things that define me now, the corner stones of my life, are the things I was told as a result of the tragedy I would never achieve.

Like a bubbling stream we move around the boulders in our path, ever flowing towards the ocean. The path of least resistance, our natural desire, delivers us time and time again to where we were always going to go. No boulder can harm the stream or define it, and in time the water will wear it down until that boulder is indistinguishable from the rest of the pebbles.

A decade ago, today, I was faced with the biggest challenge of my life. Looking back it was no different to every other challenge – it just took longer to overcome.

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5 way to tell a goal from an ego trip

Monday, November 9th, 2009

Goals are so very chic right now. It is normal to be working overtime, freelancing or consulting on top of your 9 to 5 gig. It is more and more common for people to own their own businesses or to be undertaking graduate study whilst working ‘full time’. These things are almost not considered a goal anymore. They are just what you do. Goals are what we do on top of these miraculous feats.

But more often than not goals are somewhat random end states that we consciously nominate, based on who we think we are at that time and who we think we want to be. Which in and of itself shouldn’t be a bad thing, right? Maybe. The catch is that most often we really don’t know what we want. We have a good idea of things that might make us happy. We know what would make our families proud. We know what would make our colleagues jealous. We know what we are interested in. So we make a guesstimate, at best, call it a goal and flog ourselves until we reach it. Not sounding quite so glamorous now is it?

I am not against goals. I am a coach. I spend a lot of time helping others to set goals.I also spend a lot of time looking into a person’s unconscious motivation, secondary gains, values, experiences, beliefs, fears and ego before I help them set a goal. Why? Why don’t I just write down the first goal that comes to their mind? Or the biggest goal they can think of? Or prescribe the most enviable, ostentatious goal applicable?

Because anybody can set a big goal and achieve it.

There is nothing special about big goals. Anybody can set the goal of working for themselves and achieve it. Anybody can set a goal of buying a luxury car. Anybody can travel around Europe. Anybody can plan a beautiful wedding. Anybody can get their body into shape. Very few can achieve a goal based solely in the ego and feel satisfied and happy at the end.

On the other hand very few people have the guts and humility to set a goal that has real and deep meaning for them and to work on that regardless of how it is perceived from the outside. Very few have the willingness to admit that really makes their heart flutter and to set about achieving it. So few are prepared to chase their dharma especially if it is something unglamorous like becoming a green keeper, raising children or nursing.

The easy ways to know your goal is not just serving your ego:

  1. Are you drawn to it like a moth to a flame?
  2. Are the steps towards your goal enjoyable?
  3. Do you find your weaknesses become strengths in the face of this goal?
  4. Do you find it hard to articulate why you want the goal, because it is just so elemental to your make up?
  5. Do you feel as though the stars are aligned & that the road to your goal has been blessed?

We don’t know who we will be in 5 years. We don’t know what we will regret later in life. We don’t know what we will be proud of at 75. We don’t know if we will enjoy something until we do it. Our experience is so very limited and we don’t know what we don’t know. We can’t trust our ego on these matters. We can trust our heart.

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