I feel most powerful when

• I forgive
• I rock the balance between assertive and vulnerable
• I accept help before I desperately need it
• I honour my needs
• I indulge my wants- just a little
• I feel my creative juices flowing
• I enact a spiritual truth
• I help a friend in need
• I find the synergy between disparate elements
• I am in tune with my body
• my intuition is clear

Thanks to O magazine and this post for the inspiration

*image credit

Turbulance

When I catch up with people I havent seen in a while they inevitably end up asking a few of the same questions;

• How are you feeling?
• Is it [the morning sickness] as bad as last time?
• When do you find out what sex the baby is? (Everybody knows I hate surprises!)
• How was Cairns?
• How did Cooper go on the plane?

The first 4 answers are stock standard. Crap. No. About 21 weeks. Great! The last one makes me smile every time.

Cooper was great, terrible, trying and adorable on the plane. He was polite to the air hostesses. He was as quiet as a 2 year old can be for 3 hours at a time. He was as still as a 2 year old can be for 3 hours at a time. Which is to say he talked and moved more that I’d like. He listened to classical music through his headphones with the concentration that a teenage ‘emo’ listens to their ipod. (But without the raincloud hovering over him.) He had the seat belt worked out before the seat belt sign came on on the tarmac, so he was far more free in the cabin than was entirely safe. But he also had the brace position down to a ‘T’, so he knew how to be  safe if was actually in his seat when the turbulence struck.

Thankfully, he was in his seat when the turbulence struck. We had a very turbulent landing. Not in the ‘Gee that was rough’ kinda way. The passengers closest to us were actually in the brace position as we came in to land. I was nauseas (when am I not these days?) and slightly green but sitting upright. I didn’t want to frighten Cooper. I had nothing to worry about. He was pointing out the window at all the cool things he was seeing. Clouds, little tiny cars on teeny tiny roads, minuscule buildings and beaches. His smile was as bright as the setting sun. His muscles were relaxed and he was totally at ease.

The thought of that landing always brings a smile to my face. Yes, in part because I didn’t throw up on the man beside me. Also because we were coming home to my darling husband. But mostly because it showed me innocence in action. Cooper was totally free of judgement, absolutely fearless, joyful, in the moment and only seeing the magic of the moment. I know one day he will see the risks, the inconveniences, the fear like most adults. I can only hope he doesn’t completely loose his joy.

Mind-full

Mindful is an interesting word. We always have a mind-full. It is the nature of the mind to think, to jump from thought to thought.

The biggest gift, and the most fun, to be had in my meditation classes were always the debunking the myths session at the very beginning. Everybody was always so relieved to hear they didn’t have to stop their minds thinking to meditate. People used to laugh out loud when I said your mind will never stop thinking, it is a little playful monkey that jumps from thought to thought never letting go of one until it has a hold of the next. Such was the realisation that working against the mind was futile, indeed insane. Instead we would explore ways to work with the mind, to lure it, to train it, to observe it, to witness it, to harness it and to meet it half way.

I know the experience of preparing for meditation only to realise you are hungry, then realising you skipped lunch because work was crazy, then remembering ‘oh shit!’ I didn’t get to send that email before I left, oh and when I left did I turn my computer screen off? – I am always forgetting to do things like that, then I shouldn’t be too hard on myself all this negative self talk can’t be helpings things, things… things to do, crap am I out of milk? Maybe I should get milk on the way home,  maybe I’ll get up early and have breakfast at that little cafe next door to work, I really love that place, chai tea and raisin toast, my ipod and sunshine - almost like a little meditation. Meditation! Fuck! That is what I am supposed to be doing already…

We always have a mind-full. They key is being aware of what our mind is full of. And, as often as possible emptying the mind except for the thoughts we choose to focus on. The easiest thought to focus on, especially for beginners is;

I am breathing in. I am breathing out.

Whenever your mind wanders, like the cheeky monkey it is, simply return to the thought ‘I am breathing in. I am breathing out.’ Even minutes of this every day will make a difference. Don’t believe me. Please, don’t. I would prefer you try it over the weekend and see for yourself. xxx

Weekend Meditation: Bahkti

Love for Love’s sake.

The thought makes me sigh deeply and shiver all over. In a good way. In the best way really.

• Giving because you have it in you to give.
• Caring because you can.
• Tending to the sick, the disadvantaged, your loved ones.
• Serving not from obligation but from joy and love.
• Doing everything you do with love.

If you care cooking dinner, imbue it with love.

If you are playing with your child, concentrate on your love for them in that moment. (Especially when its hard to find.)

If you are cleaning the kitchen, loose the begrudging thoughts and choose to serve those in your family happily.

Ensure your work is a devotion of some kind, to others, to your grand vision.

Whatever you do, do it with love. Not for reward, not for glory, just for love’s sake.

NB: Bhakti Yoga is a complex. And I do not mean any disservice in simplifying it and applying it to the life of a householder, but these days few of us are monks. I certainly am not. As spiritual as I consider myself, I still operate within the normal bounds of society. Though, sometimes escaping to an ashram for days of meditation, yoga and labour sounds like pure bliss. And we need not be monks to dedicate ourselves to love for love’s sake.

The person I let down the most is…

… me

I am pretty good at following through on what I say I’m going to do. If I stuff up, if I forget, if something gets in the way I apologise. I beat away the guilt resolving to do better. For the most part I can be described as ‘reliable’. Actually, I am pretty sure I have primary school report cards tucked away in the garage (yes, I am that sentimental) that say exactly that ‘contentious, reliable and a pleasure to teach’. Yep, I was a teacher’s pet. Until high school. Then I got thrown out of religion class, like, a LOT. But that is a story for another day.

I find it painful, physically and emotionally, to let someone down. Except for me. I seem to be pretty damn good at letting myself down and not feeling a thing. Well, I don’t know that is exactly true. I do feel the faintest hint of betrayal, eroding self-trust and shame BUT I have been systematically numbing myself to those feelings. Obviously, because on some level I think its peachy to keep letting myself down.

Well no more numbing. It isn’t peachy. It sucks.

I tried thinking of the little promises I had made to myself, you know the ones; you say it mentally to yourself and you get a quietly gently excited. Looking forward to doing something for me. Then life gets busy, we get busy, we get distracted, priorities shift, fires need putting out and we just let it go. I don’t acknowledge it most of the time, I don’t apologise, re-schedule, resolve to do better. I just pretend the promise didn’t matter or that it wasn’t a promise at all. I don’t even treat my enemies that way.

So from now on, as much as humanly possible (I am pregnant and have a shocking case of baby brain), I will honour myself & my relationship with myself by honouring my promises to me the way I would honour a promise to you.

PS having said that the new layout and schedule is coming…

Writing mojo

I am finding it really difficult to write at the moment. Interesting that my writing mojo seems to evaporate directly after 21 days of the Bindu Wiles 21.5.800 challenge.

Part of my difficulty writing is because recently I have been afraid to write. Terrified of noting down that was knocking around inside, words are power you know. Part of it is that it’s not appropriate to share what is in my mind and heart at the moment. Part of it is that my creative energies are being funneled off in a different direction. I already know what happens when my creativity finds a muse.

It happened a few years ago. I thought there was something very wrong with me. I was young, in a blissfully happy partnership, loving my work. My creative juices were flowing in my work. I had just begin teaching meditation and leading a spiritual development group. Spiritually and vocationally I was alive; on fire. Sexually, I was dry as a bone.

I couldn’t work it out. I knew this happened sometimes to women. But older women, right? Not me. Not at 23 for fucks sake! Yeah I have some crappy sexual history, but it wasn’t the cause. Though my body betraying my mind and refusing to become juicy, that sure and hell bought it up. To this day I find it ironic that being unable to be sexual bought up sexual shame. (But that is another post for another day; how women seem to take responsibility for, and find shame in, our sexuality regardless of whether we are over or under sexual.)

I was lucky at the time to have a sage on my team. A wonderful woman who has decades of learning (and teaching) on me and is all too generous in sharing her wisdom. I had her to go to. She taught me to heal my sexual shame, with my partner, by tapping into our collective shame embodying it completely. A truly harrowing and healing experience. She also explained to me the nature of my creative feminine power.

I learned then that my creativity can do more than one thing at a time, but it [I] can’t serve two masters at once. Instead I do one well and feel stifled in the other. Then it was grow into my new role and vocation I did well and sex that was stifled. Now, my creativity is busy and writing has become the other.

Final thoughts

A few weeks back I was searching. I had written in my journal that I was looking for something. In the past when I needed a guide they appeared before I realised how important they were. Now, I am acutely aware of my need for a guide AND the absence of one. So, either my guide is dragging their feet or they aren’t coming. My money is on the fact that I am on my own this time.

*Sigh*

Doing the work has never bothered me. Facing uncomfortable truths, making friends with what terrifies me, learning to love what I judge, this I can do. But do it alone? Do it without a mentor or a process? Help!

I know why I am on my own this time too, part of this leg of my journey is about trusting myself, my inner compass and the resources I have within.  Knowing this wouldn’t stop me clinging to a teacher if there was one near by. So the universe stepped in and helped me out; no guides, only guidelines. Guidelines in the most unexpected way.

As I was wrestling with the realisation that my journey henceforth was guided by my heart alone I discovered Bindu Wiles and her stroke of inspiration 21.5.800. At the time I didn’t recognise it for what it was, I made the commitment on the spot thinking it would fill in the gap until I figured out my next step. What  I discovered was a direct line to my heart (my guide), a structure and a huge community of like-minded souls to act as inspiration and cheer leaders. I found, in large part, what I had been looking for.

My thoughts on the journey are in their infancy, probably too misty and unformed yet to be coherent. But I have another 10 days to go, so I’ll work on clarifying them. I do know I feel different. I feel clearer. I feel less lost. I feel hopeful. I feel inspired. I feel like something is coming. I feel like the cogs of the universe have begun to turn. I feel relieved. I feel excited. I feel blessed. I feel centered.

A day of grace

You wouldn’t know it from the discarded wooden trains on my living room floor but yesterday I witnessed, live in my living room, a historic day in my great nation. I watched as feminism made a huge win (although in part by default). I watched grace embodied on both sides of the fence.

I am a big picture person. I am really unfussed, for the most part by the petty sides of the Leadership spill that transpired yesterday in parliament. I don’t care for the opposition leader’s snide comments (truth be told I don’t care for the opposition leader), I refuse to entertain the commentary on Julia Gillard’s makeup, her clothes, her hair colour or her nose, I am hesitant to comment on the so-called shattering of the glass ceiling. What really struck me was something subtler and far more important.

Yesterday was a powerful day. From closely watching the coverage on the ABC of the spill, twitter and the reactions of my friends I came to the conclusion that yesterday was powerful because of its compassion, inclusiveness, honesty, humanity, earnestness, its demonstrations of support. What struck me was that politics was flavoured with grace.

I am often heard saying that there are few role models for women today. The pickings are slim if you are looking for women who own themselves, who shine that to the world regardless of the box society would attempt to put them in. The pickings are slimmer still of you are looking for unflinching compassion in action. And the holy grail, women willing to lead with their feminine strengths of inclusion, compassion, communication are so few and far between they are often viewed as urban legends.

Yesterday I found two role models. Therese Rein, who embodied compassion, grace, and acceptance in her unflinching love and support of her husband in his final act as Prime Minister. Everything about Therese resonated love, it was clear that her husband relied heavily on that love for his strength when, at the conclusion of his speech, he asked his wife if he had forgotten anything. What is more she responded eloquently in a forum that it would normally be seen as inappropriate for her speak at all. She was wife and contemporary in that moment, acting from her deepest truth and compassion. Twitter loved her. Comments like ’I think we’ve lost a fabulous “First Lady” in Therese Rein ‘ from @Rebeccasparrow and ‘I wish Therese was my wife‘ from @Miafreedman.

Then there was the 27th Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Wow. Charisma that I never expected emanated from her every pore. She was humble, responsible, honest, clear, grateful, inclusive, fair, disciplined and warm. Truly an embodiment of strength and focus complemented brilliantly with a willingness to be compassionate and to reach consensus. What a day to be a woman. Twitter went equally wild with the hashtag #gillard trending first for some time and comments such as these, @randykins ‘someone who shows this humility deserves to be PM‘ @Taramoss ‘She’s smart and capable. What an amazing day.‘ @Miafreedman ‘Julia looks Prime Ministerial. Not all leaders look like leaders, male or female. Today, she does.‘

Amen, sister.

The muse’s sense of humour

My 21.5.800 challenge had been moving along quite smoothly. I was able to sit down to write, on my couch in comfortable clothes, of an evening and pump out at least 800 words happily. Yoga was sliding into the cracks in my schedule (especially savasana). Everything was feeling effortless. Until it didn’t. Until it wasn’t.

Sitting down for the first time I felt I had nothing to write. I scanned over my drafts and my notes looking for something to hook me. The feeling of resonance that calls me to write on something, anything, wasn’t there. I admitted defeat. Publicly. I tweeted the #21.5.800 community.

I sigh, deflated, defeated. Almost instantly… the flow begins. The very moment I step out of my own way, it flows. Thousands of words later, I stem the flow, in order to sleep.

What I know for sure: Expectation is the mother of disappointment. When I get out of my own way things unfold.

The gold is spoiling my grass

I was once told the story of an old man. I have no idea where this story comes from, so if you know let me know so I can attribute it here.

This old man is negative, grumpy, set in his ways. He wants more money; everything is expensive, prices are rising and he longs for the days when he was a boy and prices were reasonable. One morning he wakes to a pile of gold bullion stacked in his front yard. His response ‘Oh gosh darn it! That gold is ruining my grass!’

I realised a moment ago that I am that man! I was reading the honest and inspired blog of Ronna Detrick Renegade Conversations. Ronna wrote the following:

I don’t want to stay dry in my relationships. I want them wild and messy and juicy. By that admission, this means they will be hard, confusing, potentially disappointing, and require much vulnerability and risk. At this point in my life I don’t want safety or surety. I want passion, abandon, fiery integrity, brutal truth, and raw beauty. I want to get wet.

First let me say Wow! Fearless honesty should always be applauded! My relationship is wild, definitely messy and juicy (in the personal growth sense) right now. It is hard, really hard, deep, slow work. And to do the work we have had to face paralysing fears, speak searingly painful truths and embrace a vulnerability I have never known before.

What a powerful re-frame. ‘Wet’ is a magic new paradigm. I am not ‘going through stuff’, ‘in a rough patch’, ‘falling apart’. I am jumping into the depths of my marriage, our love, with both feet. I am getting wet.

Desire is desirable

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?

Willingness

A question I am faced with a lot more in adulthood than I anticipated is am I willing to do what I must?

Am I willing to forgive? Am I willing to take a risk? Am I willing to trust? Am I willing to get hurt? Am I willing to make sacrifices? Am I willing to get past the pettiness? Am I willing let go? Am I willing to Love? Am I willing to really be open? Am I willing to be soft when the world conspires to make me tough? Am I willing to do the work? Am I willing to take responsibility? Am I willing to tune in? Am I willing to show up? Am I willing to just be? Am I willing to find stillness? Am I willing to face the truth? Am I willing to grow? Am I willing to push through my resistance?

Sometimes willingness is half the battle.  Sometimes being willing is enough. I hope it is enough, because I don’t know how to be open and soft right now.